Life + Love

A Bloody Good Time

forensic workshop at police museum
The Vancouver Police Museum is holding a very cool trio of forensic workshops. I missed the first one, pathology, last week because I was working the opera.

forensic workshop at police museum
The police museum used to be the city morgue and autopsy facility. Between 1932-1980, almost 15,000 autopsies were performed

But I got to go to blood spatter class last night.

forensic workshop at police museum
Instructor Chris Mathiesen showing us his bloody knife.

Things I learned in blood spatter class:

*blood contracts when it hit a surface due to its cohesiveness

*blood drops are spherical and not tearshaped

*the diameter of bloodstains increases with height

forensic workshop at police museum
Measuring length and width of a droplet will tell you angle of impact: angle formed between the direction of the blood drop and the plane of the surface it strikes

**Cast-off is when blood is flicked from a blood-bearing object

**Spatter is divided into 3 categories:
1. Low velocity spatter, such as dripping blood from a stab wound
2. Medium velocity spatter, caused by blunt force trauma. Can result in projected blood as the heart continues to pump
3. High velocity spatter usually due to being shot. Blood will spray like a fine mist

forensic workshop at police museum
Medium velocity: hammering on the coconut/brain.

forensic workshop at police museum
The coconut, acting as the brain on mannequin Betty, was filled with fake blood.

Course, this was just 1 hour class (with a lot of playtime), so we were far from being blood spatter analysts, but it gave us a taste of channeling the Dexter Morgans inside us all.

For more pics, check my Flickr.

Next week’s class: ballistics.

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2 Comments

  • Reply duriandave March 25, 2010 at 8:37 pm

    Oh dear…

    Did you get to hammer on the coconut head? ;p

    I’ve always been fascinated whenever I’ve come across trails of blood drops on the sidewalk (it’s happened more than once!). It’s an invitation to let the mind run wild with stories about what happened.

    Have fun in ballistics! 😀

  • Reply lightning in a bottle April 11, 2010 at 6:45 am

    @ dave – no, i didn’t let out the crazy in me and pull a whack-a-mole on that coconut. (i had a recital to go to right afterwards and didn’t want to arrive at the reception all fake-bloodied)

    as for the drops of blood on the sidewalk? you’re more curious than i am!

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