The first dead body I ever saw....

[Jezebel]

The first dead body I ever saw was during the summer of '95.
I was a college student and avid sailor who got a summer job in North Myrtle Beach, SC giving people rides on catamarans. It was a very cool gig. I'd wake up at the crack of noon everyday, wander down to the beach, set my boat up and let the sun bake away the hangover I usually had until someone bothered me enough to take them sailing. Good times.

On this particular morning, the guy that owned the beach service that I contracted through, drove up in his Jeep and let me know that a black guy had drowned the previous afternoon several miles up the coast. He just wanted me to keep an eye out for a body floating around while I was sailing. Tourists can handle the occassional dead jellyfish washing up on shore, but the remains of a human that have been soaking in the Atlantic overnight, washing up on little Johnny's sand castle tend to ruin the mood of even the most open minded family. I told him I'd keep an eye out and went back to nursing my hangover.

A few hours later, I hear the jingling bell of one of the Lemon Quench girls coming down the beach. I look up and see that it is Natalie. Now Natalie is one smoking specimen of a woman that I had been trying to fire on for a few days. She was even the source of this days hangover as we had closed down a local bar the previous night. I had made numerous attempts to get her to come out on my boat for a ride, but she always declined saying that she was scared of small boats in such a big ocean. Well, on this particular day Natalie finally took me up on my offer and decided to give sailing a shot.

I got the boat through the surf and trimmed the sails in to where the boat was really moving good. Natalie at first was quite nervous but settled down after a few minutes. Once we were about a mile off the beach, Natalie let out a shriek and started pointing at something up ahead floating in the water. I immediately took my eyes off of Natalie's [censored] and saw what had upset her. Sure enough we were about to run over the dead body of the guy who had drowned the previous day. All I could think at the time was "Damn, dead men really do float in the Dead Man's Float position". This chick starts going hysterical on me so I swing the boat around and head back to shore. I try to calm her down so that she won't make a scene when we get back to the beach. Matters such as these need to be handled discreetly. No such luck. Within 5 minutes everyone within shouting distance of us now knows there is a dead body floating around.

I get one of the lifeguards to radio the beach service owner and he shows up after about a half hour with the Head Lifeguard. The Head Lifeguard is a real douchebag. One of these guys who takes his job way to serious. He even has an autographed picture of David Hasselhoff in his small office. This prompted me to nickname him "Joe Baywatch". Joe actually kind of enjoyed the name even though it was clearly meant as a dig, which further added to the evidence that this guy was a douche.

The owner and Joe Baywatch run the 20 question game on me to which every question ended with the same answer. "Uhh..yep it was a dead guy" They briefly conference trying to decide what to do and I suggest calling the coast guard. Joe Baywatch is not happy at all with this suggestion primarly because he would no longer be involved so he suggests to the owner that the three of us go out on my boat to try and find this guy again. I let them know that I'd be happy to take them out there and look around, but there was no way in hell they were going to pull this guy up on my boat. They could tie a bouy to his ankle or something else so that the coast guard could find him easier, but a half chewed on dead dude was not going to be riding on my boat. They seemed dissappointed that I was standing firm on this point but decided to go ahead and ride out with me to see if we could locate him again.

At this point, the wind and seas were starting to pump up. We got through the surf and I sailed roughly in the direction of where I had seen the body before. The swells were really starting to get big so it was difficult to see anything floating far away. We had been out for about 30 minutes when Joe Baywatch spots something floating about 40 yards away. I swing the boat around but by the time we get to the spot whatever was floating was no longer there. Shortly after we see the object bob up again and break the surface. I again swing the boat around but its too late the object again disappears. Joe Baywatch really has his adrenaline pumping now. He starts speeching that it is our job to ensure that this guy returns to his family and that he is willing to stay out there all night if need be. I inform him that it is not my job to hunt dead bodies and they have 10 minutes before I turn around and head back for shore. Joe now decides that the next time we see him float up he is going to jump in with the buoy and grab the guy. I immediatly think this is a bad idea as there are surely all kinds of things eating on the corpse by this point. Joe doesn't care. He is there to do a job and by God he is going to do it. Fair enough. We once again see something bob up about 10 yards ahead. Joe jumps to his feet and holds on to one of the shrouds of the boat preparing to jump in on top of whatever we have been chasing around for the last hour. We are just about on top of the object when Joe jumps into the water. I'm close enough now to see that the object we had been chasing was not the dead floater, but a huge sea turtle that must have been curious enough to check us out. Joe frantically scrambles back for the boat not knowing whether sea turtles are aggressive enough to take a chunk out of his ass for being so gung-ho. We help Joe back on the boat and I laugh my ass off the entire way back to shore. Joe seems a little embarrassed but thankful he didn't get attacked.

The dead body eventually washed up on shore about 10 miles to the north of us the next morning.

[By-Tor]

mines Keith Richards

[guids]

My cousin is a coroner in a small town, we go there for christmas and thanksgiving, he is on call, and there's suicides everyone once in awhile, the first one that I got to see was some dude who shot himself in the head with a shotgun, I was like 15. My dad found one of his neighbors dead in a bathtub, with his hands sawed off by a chainsaw that was next to the body....they ruled it a suicide, Im pretty sure it actually was too, which is really [censored] up.

[4thstreetpete]

cool story.

[Borodog]

[ QUOTE ]
mines Keith Richards

[/ QUOTE ]

RIP thread on the first reply. Well done.

[KidLifeCrisis]

You never went to a funeral before 95?

[Jezebel]

nope

[bisonbison]

I'd been to funerals before, but we don't do open caskets. So, the first dead body I ever saw was my dad's after I watched him die.

That was AWESOME.

[BillNye]

Joe Baywatch sounds awesome.

Edit: He also seems like the exact opposite of my idol, Tim.

[wildzer0]

I saw a guy get decapitated by a subway on christmas eve.