So this morning, in my blood spatter lab we had two different parts. During the first half of the lab, we had all different wood shapes on a spring board and we had to soak a tiny piece of sponge with blood and then let the spring board snap down onto so we could look at high and low velocity blood flow as well as the blood stain pattern. (This procedure works very much like a mouse trap). Of course nobody wanted to volunteer to go in there and hold the spring board because nobody wanted to get blood on them. Of course we had full body tivex suits on so even if you got blood on you you were covered from head to foot anyway. So we had seven different spring boards and we did that. It was fun and I ended up staying pretty much clean.

After everyone was done with that part we moved on to part two. In this part we had one demonstration where they soaked a regular sized sponge with blood and then someone took a lead pipe to the sponge to see how the blood stain pattern would occur. That went well, another girl in my class performed it. The sponge wasn’t staying on the setup very well which made it hard for her to hit it very hard. We did see some good stain patterns especially from blood flying into the air and then coming back down onto the wall. It makes a much different pattern that way then if it just hits the wall as soon as it shoots up and away from the victim or from this case the sponge.

Next was the final demonstration of the day… this is where I come into play. In this demonstration someone would stand in the locker type set up and they would hold their hand up as if they were a victim fighting for their lives. Brittany is the girl who decided to be the victim. The other person (me) was going to hold a sponge of blood and start punching it right in front of her face to see what it would be like if the person were being beat to death when attacked. She stood there back towards the wall, with her right hand up.

Now to interject into the story, I was wearing a tyvek suit that was a little too short for me. My arms were practically sticking all the way out because the sleeves were so short. Go figure. That always happens to me. So Chase, one of the kids in my class (a very funny individual) says, “Cassey, Let me fix you up so you are completely protected.” We immeditely start laughing, but I allowed him to fix me up.

So he puts paper towels on my arms and starts wrapping it up and duct taping me with bright blue tape. I mean this is hillarious. So I have a completely white, full body tyvex suit on, booties on my shoes, papertowels wrapped around my arms with bright blue tape, a face shield, a hood, and to top it off he tapped a paper towel to the front of the face shield and put a paper towel on my neck. How embarassing. It was so funny. Everyone was laughing so hard at what I looked like and of course they were all taking picures. They get me set up and I’m getting ready to go in there and do some damage when I had a great idea that I should take to the streets in this get up. I should get blood all over me and then just go outside and start screaming O MY, WE’RE ALL INFECTED. ITS NOT QUARNTINED! Everyone loved this idea except my lab instructor who said no. Then Chase had a great idea that I should go over to towers (a dorm that I lived freshman year) and I should go to the brew and gold cafe and just order food like nothing wrong. It was quite comical. We laughed about it for ummm like ten minutes. I probably would have done it to. Everyone said they would follow me around just to see everyone’s reaction. Thanks to Ryan my instructor, it was a no go.

Anyway, I got a little side tracked. Back to the bloody sponge. Ryan puts the sponge in my hand and pours an entire vial of blood onto it. He says okay let me do another one. So he pours another vial of blood onto the sponge. Finally he decides one last vial of blood. By this time it is just dripping down my hand (which I was wearing gloves I forgot to mention that) and when he decides that’s enough he steps back and says have at it.

I turned and just smiled at Brittany. Then I took the sponge, held it infront of her face, and punched it as hard as I could. As soon as I punched it the first time the blood sprayed out between my hands and splashed all over her face mask. Then I continued punching it and my hands were so slippery with blood that the sponge fell onto the floor. So I picked it up and punched it somemore. It was AWESOME. Finally I stepped back to assess the damage. We were both completely covered and that stupid paper towel that insisted I tape on my face probably did some good.

The class was laughing having a good time and they took many more pictures and some people even got a video. Now getting out of this mess was a little bit more complex than setting up for it. It was a double effort for both Brittany and I and taking off our bloodied clothes was difficult but after some soap I was pretty cleaned up. It smelled awful though. ugh. I loved it though. It was sooo fun. Soon I will post pictures. I don’t care how embarrassing it is. I’m easy going.

Confessions of a Writer<3