I was just randomly checking out what Funerals costs and was shocked how expensive it was! €3.500 to €5.500! I live in north Germany, and we have here some very deep Woods. So I was thinking what would happen if I just die there. Let’s say no one ever finds me. Are Animals just going to eat me, and will I just be gone in a couple of years?

EDIT: If someone knows what happens step by step I would be really curious to know :D

  • CandleTiger@programming.dev
    95·
    10 个月前

    I’m imagining what happens is they organize a giant search party to look for you (this is not the good kind of giant party) Eventually they find your corpse and put it in a refrigerator for a long time while your relatives argue with the police about whether you were kidnapped and murdered. Somebody pays for all this, maybe the tax payers, maybe your relatives, I don’t know. Then after all that you finally get to have your expensive funeral but on top of being sad, everybody is frustrated.

    I’m thinking, better all around if you just don’t die quite yet because that shit is just awkward.

    Gluck auf!

    • catarina@kbin.social
      32·
      10 个月前

      I love the sentiment: “just don’t die because it’s awkward AF”. If “joie de vivre” doesn’t make you cling to life, there’s always social anxiety even after death 🤣

    • teft@lemmy.world
      28·
      10 个月前

      So what you’re saying is that you need to make the crime scene interesting so people aren’t frustrated. Got it.

        • teft@lemmy.world
          15·
          10 个月前

          I prefer the balloon drop. If you use one of those mylar balloons it could last for 30 years and still be full of air. Just think how it would really perk up some future investigator’s afternoon.

    • Scubus@sh.itjust.works
      2·
      10 个月前

      What happens if I commit suicide by fire? And maybe with a fan to blow away the ashes?

      Basically what if there is no body?

      • yokonzo@lemmy.world
        7·
        10 个月前

        So an incineration to ashes requires something like several sustained hours at 4000⁰, you would basically have to build a pyre

      • LillyPip@lemmy.ca
        3·
        10 个月前

        Isn’t self immolation fairly agonising? I always assumed fire is the worst way to go.

          • LillyPip@lemmy.ca
            2·
            10 个月前

            Your comment will be my head canon from now on, because I desperately hope that’s true. I’ve been traumatised by a few videos on WPD back in the day. :(

        • Scubus@sh.itjust.works
          1·
          10 个月前

          I have no idea tbh, but I did get a 1 inch circular brand about a decade ago, and after the first two seconds or so, I couldn’t feel the heat anymore. Of course by that point my skin was literally boiling. Even before that, I don’t remember the pain being very bad.

  • LerajeEnglish
    54·
    10 个月前

    You’ll start to decay, flies and maggots will infest you. When the smell reaches animals, they’ll eat the meat. During that process the bones will get scattered. Insects will pick the bones clean and anything organic left (the bone fragments themselves) will eventually break down.

    • AggressivelyPassive@feddit.de
      11·
      10 个月前

      I’m aware that bodies will be eaten up, but I have to say, I have absolutely zero intuition, how long it will take.

      Germany doesn’t have many wild animals left, so only foxes, birds, maybe badgers and rats are left to eat larger chunks. They’ll not exactly eat you in one go.

      So, how long are we talking from body to bones? Weeks? Months?

      • LerajeEnglish
        8·
        10 个月前

        Don’t think it’d even take weeks. It wouldn’t be just be a couple of foxes or badgers, it’d be all of them for miles around. Scent travels a long way. Then on top of the larger (by European standards) animals, lots of birds eat carrion.

      • Agent641@lemmy.world
        6·
        10 个月前

        Go on youtube and look for Body Farm documentaries. All the details you could possibly want.

      • Jojo@lemm.ee
        1·
        10 个月前

        According to an article from WaPo that I found after a quick Google, Germany has around 1300 wolves. So, hey, they could eat you too!

    • Scipitie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      4·
      10 个月前

      You’re spot on!

      Your choice of words made me think though:

      Isn’t the dead body the one ingesting the forrest and the native maggots and flies just clean up?

  • Thorry84@feddit.nl
    36·
    10 个月前

    I don’t think Germany has any woods where you can really disappear, most woods have enough hikers to hit almost every spot in a couple of weeks. The woods are too small and the amount of people enjoying them is too high.

    You can also insure yourself to cover the funeral costs. I pay something like 50 euro per year and all funeral costs are 100% covered for the people I leave behind.

    • isles@lemmy.worldEnglish
      10·
      10 个月前

      I’ve never been, but the Black Forest has two segements, 394,000 ha (1521 sq mi) and 375,000 ha (1441 sq mi). Those seem big enough to become lost in.

      • Thorry84@feddit.nl
        8·
        10 个月前

        Well yes and no. The Schwarzwald area is actually not to far from where I live, I’ve been there often. It’s a huge forest, but there are a lot of towns, homes and tourist locations in there. It’s more like an area than exclusively a forest. I doubt there is any place you can walk in a straight line for more than a couple of hours before happening upon a road, home or town.

        It’s also a very popular tourist location for people near and far, so it can be quite busy there.

      • Yerbouti@lemmy.ml
        4·
        10 个月前

        Exactly what I was thinking. I was raise there and the Black Forest is definitly big enough to never be found. It would actually be a really nice place to disappear in, waldeinsamkeit.

  • Thorny_Insight@lemm.ee
    27·
    10 个月前

    Animals die in the woods aswell but how often do you find their corpses there? You’d be gone in no time.

  • morgunkorn@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
    27·
    10 个月前

    There’s a good article you can read that explains the process of decomposition and the influence of external factors:

    https://www.theguardian.com/science/neurophilosophy/2015/may/05/life-after-death

    Beware of gruesome details, avoid this one if you’re sensitive to this topic :)

    EDIT: there’s also a VICE video of a study on open-air decomposition of the body to help solve crimes in the united states

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqRo23h01qQ

    • psud@lemmy.world
      18·
      10 个月前

      If so, it’s bad advice. Walking into the forest and becoming dead leaves pretty much all the evidence

      Like it’s not hard to find cause of death when a skull is found in the remains of an exit bag

  • EunieIsTheBus@feddit.de
    12·
    10 个月前

    Well if you really assume your body won’t be found you just decompose like any animal. Just open youtube. There are enough timelaps videos about this topic. The last few remaining things are your bones and hair. Hair just decomposes badly, bones will last even longer. Ah and any plastic and metal you are carring around of course. Clothes, and jewelry or implants like silicon boobs and hip joints.

    • prof@infosec.pub
      1·
      10 个月前

      There’s a joke in there about grannys with boob jobs, but I’m not yet depraved enough to try and find it.

  • poVoq@slrpnk.net
    12·
    10 个月前

    Your body is very likely going to be found by dogs from hunters even in the deepest of woods (in Europe).

  • Mothra@mander.xyz
    10·
    10 个月前

    Short answer is Yes, animals will eat you and your corpse will be reduced to bones in some time. How much time depends on several factors, such as which animals find you or not and the temperature, humidity and sunlight the body is exposed to.

  • Jojo@lemm.ee
    9·
    10 个月前

    Found a paper about scavengers in Europe and the team doing the study apparently did the work in Germany, so:

    We found several influences having impact on the de- composition and consumption of carcasses:

    • Season: In summer, carcasses are mainly con- sumed by arthropods and bacteria. Only Red Fox (Vulpes vulpes) is regularly eating from rotting carcasses, while in winter consumption is done mainly by vertebrates. Wild Boar (Sus scrofa), Wolf (Canis lupus), Pine Marten (Martes martes), Domestic Cat (Felis catus) and Raccoon Dog (Nyctereutes procyonoides) used carcasses only in winter, especially after snowfall. In winter there are large flocks of Raven (Corvus corax) at the carcass, in summer only the resident couple.

    • Condition of carcass: It makes a significant dif- ference if the road kill shows open wounds or if the animal died of inside injuries. With no open wounds even White Tailed Eagle (Haliaeetus al- bicilla) with its strong beak has difficulties in opening a carcass, and trying to open it is time consuming. In combination with the season, the carcass starts rotting fast in summer and will not be used by most vertebrates. We have evidence for just one case when Ravens Corvus corax) were able to open the softer skin of a Wild Boar’s (Sus scrofa) belly and feed on the intes- tines.

    • Age of scavenger: While adult Red Foxes (Vulpes vulpes) will eat of any carcass, the pup- pies are mainly feeding on the large insects near and on the carcasses.

    • Feeding strategy: Ravens (Corvus corax) do not actually feed at the carcass. They fill their craw with meat, hide it away and come back for more meat. As we often find more than 20 Ravens (Corvus corax) at the same carcass, consumption rate can be accelerated much by Ravens (Corvus corax).

    • Competition: Interspecific and intraspecific competition is more complicated than expected. Although adult White Tailed Eagles (Haliaeetus albicilla) dominate young ones at the carcasses, in groups of Raven (Corvus corax) there will be one to mob any eagle by pulling their feathers on the wings or tail. This strategy fails when used on Buzzards (Buteo buteo) as the Buzzard (Bu- teo buteo) will strike back and single Ravens get mobbed themselves by Red Kites (Milvus milvus) stealing the Raven’s meat stored in a hideaway. Competition between vertebrates and bacteria is also remarkable; it seems to follow “first come, first served”

    Citation:

    Scavenging Birds and Ecosystem Services Experience from Germany

    Xiaoying Gu, Rene Krawczynski

  • psud@lemmy.world
    9·
    10 个月前

    Doesn’t Germany have cheap body disposal options?

    At very least you ought to be able to donate your body for medical training