Heart Dissection

Caution: if the thought of dissecting anything, including a pigs heart, makes you nauseous for your own happiness do not continue reading.

My EMT-B instructor has been telling us for weeks that he is trying to "get the hearts" and as soon as he does he'll bring them in. I had no idea that these were going to be actual pigs hearts which, surprisingly, are about the same size as humans. When he finally got to class 55 minutes late (is anyone surprised that I DID NOT leave?!?! I was!) anyways, he had a cooler full of pigs hearts and he told us to get gloves and a scalpel looking instrument and have fun! I could not believe it, I was so dang excited!!!!! I was in a group of three and no one in my group really knew the structures of the heart or the flow of blood through the heart so I got to show them. It was so cool to be able to put my fingers into the aorta and have them go into the left ventricle. Anyways, we got to just go to town!!! Bobby, one of the boys in my group, decided he wanted to put the aorta off of the heart so he mutilated our heart, but it was so amazing. I guess my instructor just goes to a slaughter house. Weird story. When he went there earlier yesterday a lady had 90 hearts on order!!! What the heck would you do with 90 hearts?!?! I think we had 12 and that was more than enough. I know to many of you this may be gross, but to me it is fascinating. I get to understand how our hearts work. What is happening when someone is having a heart attack, why they tell you to chew and aspirin, what happens during a trauma like when a steering wheel gets you right in the stomach and shreds your aorta. I just wanted to share my joys with everyone else =) I tried to keep this less graphic, if you want some more cool stories give me a call!!!