Professor Anil Aggrawal's Page of Forensic Jokes, puns and Tidbits

Forensic Jokes

On September 2, 1999, Dr. Soni, who had come from Gwalior to take MBBS exams told me this story which he claims to be true. Later it was confirmed by several colleagues of mine, including Dr. Dikshit and Dr. Khanna.

Dr. K.K.Mishra was the Principal at the Medical College, Cuttack, when the college was sanctioned a decent sum of money for Post-partum program. Normally forensic medicine departments are so neglected, they never get such fantastic sums. Due to a clerical mistake somewhere along the line, the phrase Post-Partum program got changed to "Post-Mortem Program", and all the money came to the department of Forensic Medicine. The Head of Forensic Medicine department (who was Professor K.K. Mishra himself) was surprised, how the government was so generous in sanctioning such a fantastic amount for such a neglected speciality. Anyway he thanked his stars and started making an entirely new building and purchasing brand new equipment for the department. After the project was almost complete, the mistake came to the notice of someone sitting in the administration, but by that time, almost all the money had been utilized, and the department of forensic medicine had got an entirely new look.

Well, who says mistakes are always disastrous. I am waiting for the day when some bright clerk in my college makes the same mistake!
************

On 25 February, 2000, I received this contribution from Dr SK Sharma, Senior Medical Officer at the General Hospital, Gurgaon (Haryana), who claims it to be a real incident. It has got such an eerie similarity to the above story, that I was forced to put this one alongside it. Here is his contribution verbatim!
May I submit my first hand departmental experience I underwent after my postgraduation in forensic medicine from Mualana Azad Medical College, New Delhi. I reported to my directorate for my placement anywhere in the district. I was referred to the concerned clerk. He asked me what did my postgraduation in forensic medicine mean. He wanted this information, so that a proposal for transfer was made commensurate with my newly acquired qualifications. I replied that it was in relation to medicolegal examinations and postmortems. Quite interestingly, the orders I received were to report in the postpartum center in a district. It took many months to be back on the post where my specialization could be used.
************
The following joke was sent on September 9, 1999 by Cyril Thomas, who claims it to be a true incident.
********** MAKING THE JOB EASIER ********
In Westminister,CA, Kevin V.Condon,36, shot himself to death after calling 911 emergency line and pinning a sign to the front door of his home said, "DEAD BODY INSIDE, CALL CORONOR, ATTEMPT SUICIDE." Inside police found a fresh pot of coffe waiting for them and the victim's body lying on several plastic bags carefully spread across his bed. A completed death certificate was on top of his night stand. Police said that Condon, a former mortuary attendent used to pick up corpses from the coroner's office, apparantely wanted to make things easy on the officers and coroner's deputies who would be handling his case.
************ The following joke was sent on September 15, 1999 by Dr. Yasar Bilge of the Forensic Medicine Department of Ankara University Medicine Faculty, Turkey.
Two doctors diagnose a different disease for a patient. The patient obviously gets very annoyed. He goes to them and asks,"Both of you have given me a different diagnosis. I demand to know who is right." One of the doctors who had just spent a housemanship in forensic medicine, ponders for a moment and then replies after careful consideration,"Well, we all know that autopsy is the final diagnosis. So we can only be sure, when you die, and we conduct an autopsy on you! So if you want to know the right diagnosis, well! you know what you have got to do!"

************ The following joke was sent on September 22, 1999 by Sudhir Gupta of Fantasy International, Greater Kailash-1, New Delhi, India. The thing that relates it to Forensic Medicine is really quite dubious and dawns upon the reader in the last line. Readers who shun blue jokes may please excuse me.

Two men camping in the mountains had spent four days together, and they were getting a little testy. One morning, the first friend says, "You know, we're starting to get on each other's nerves. Why don't we split up today. I'll hike north and spend the day looking around, you hike south and spend the day. Then tonight, we'll have dinner and share our experiences over the campfire." The second friend agrees and hikes south. The first man hikes north. That night over dinner, the first man tells his story. "Today I hiked into a beautiful valley. I followed a stream up into a canyon and ate lunch. Then I swam in a crystal clear mountain lake. As I sat out and dried, I watched deer come and drink from the stream. The wildflowers were filled with butterflies and hawks floated all day overhead. How was your day?" The second friend says, "I went south and ran across a set of railroad tracks. I followed them until I came across a beautiful young woman tied to the tracks. I cut the ropes off, gently lifted her off the tracks, and we had sex in every imaginable way all afternoon. Finally, when I was so tired I could barely move, I came back to camp." "Wow!!" the first guy exclaimed, "Your day was MUCH better than mine. Did you get a blow job, too?" "Nah," says the second friend over his meal, "I couldn't find her head."
************ The following joke was sent on September 24, 1999 by Dr. R.K.Sharma of the Forensic Medicine Department of All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi. This is a good one..... bizarre too!

At the 1994 annual awards dinner given for Forensic Science, the president, Dr. Don Harper Mills, astounded his audience with the legal complications of a bizarre death. Here is the story: On March 23, 1994, the medical examiner viewed the body of Ronald Opus and concluded that he died from a shotgun wound to the head. The decedent had jumped from the top of a ten story building intending to commit suicide.He left a note to that effect indicating his despondency. As he fell past the ninth floor, his life was interrupted by a shotgun blast passing through a window, which killed him instantly. Neither the shooter nor the decedent was aware that a safety net had been installed just below at the eighth floor level to protect some building workers and that Ronald Opus would not have been able to complete his suicide the way he had planned. Ordinarily, Dr. Mills continued, "a person who sets out to commit suicide and ultimately succeeds, even though the mechanism might not be what he intended" is still defined as committing suicide. That Mr. Opus was shot on the way to certain death nine stories below at street level, but that his suicide attempt probably would not have been successful because of the safety net, caused the medical examiner to feel that he had a homicide on his hands. The room on the ninth floor from whence the shotgun blast emanated was occupied by an elderly man and his wife. They were arguing vigorously, and he was threatening her with a shotgun. The man was so upset that when he pulled the trigger he completely missed his wife and the pellets went through the window, striking Mr. Opus. When one intends to kill subject A, but kills subject B in the attempt, one is guilty of the murder of subject B. When confronted with the murder charge, the old man and his wife were both adamant. They both said they thought the shotgun was unloaded. The old man said it was his long-standing habit to threaten his wife with the unloaded shotgun. He had no intention to murder her. Therefore, the killing of Mr. Opus appeared to be an accident, that is, the gun had been accidentally loaded. The continuing investigation turned up a witness who saw the old couple's son loading the shotgun about six weeks prior to the fatal accident. It transpired that the old lady had cut off her son's financial support and the son, knowing the propensity of his father to use the shotgun threateningly, loaded the gun with the expectation that his father would shoot his mother. The case now becomes one of murder on the part of the son for the death of Ronald Opus. Now comes the exquisite twist. Further investigation revealed that the son was in fact Ronald Opus. He had become increasingly despondent over the failure of his attempt to engineer his mother's murder. This led him to jump off the ten story building on March 23rd, only to be killed by a shotgun blast passing through the ninth story window. The son had actually murdered himself, so the medical examiner closed the case as a suicide. Very tidy of him.
Dr. Sharma informs me that this is a true story from Associated Press, by Kurt Westervelt.
************ The following three short jokes were sent on Wednesday, 22 Dec 1999 by Subhash Niyogi and Dr.Prasenjit

Once a reporter asked a famouse forensic scientist,"Sir,How do you feel when somebody dies?"
"It's time to work!" replied the scientist with a smile. ************

"What happens if somebody swallows potassium cyanide", asked a student.
"Nothing worth happening remains", said the teacher.
************

Here is a hint on how to identify THALLIUM poisoning:
When the body of a person becomes stiff like a THALLUS then it's thallium poisoning.
************

The following joke was sent by Moneek Mehra on 23 January 2000
Three dead bodies turn up at the mortuary, all with very big smiles on their faces. A Detective Inspector (DI) is sent and is taken straight to the first body. "This guy was an Englishman, 60, died of heart failure while playing with his grandchildren. Hence the enormous smile Inspector ", says the mortuary chief. The DI nods understandingly and is taken to the second dead man. "This was an American, 25, won 124 million dollars in the Power Ball lottery, spent it all on booze. Died of alcohol poisoning, hence the contended smile." "Nothing unusual here", thinks the DI, and asks to be shown the last body. "Ah," says the chief, "this is the most unusual one, a Sardarji, 30, struck by lightning." "Why is he smiling then?" inquires the Inspector. "Thought he was having his picture taken," replies the chief.

************

The following series of jokes was sent by Mike Duxbury on Friday, the 28 January 2000
Subject: Massachusetts Bar Association Lawyers Journal
Date: 14 November 1997 15:05
Recently reported in the Massachusetts Bar Association Lawyers Journal, the following are questions actually asked of witnesses by attorneys during trials and, in certain cases, the responses given by insightful witnesses:
1. "Now doctor, isn't it true that when a person dies in his sleep, he doesn't know about it until the next morning?"
2. "The youngest son, the twenty-year old, how old is he?"
3. "Were you present when your picture was taken?"
4. "Were you alone or by yourself?"
5. "Was it you or your younger brother who was killed in the war?"
6. "Did he kill you?"
7. "How far apart were the vehicles at the time of the collision?"
8. "You were there until the time you left, is that true?"
9. "How many times have you committed suicide?"
*********************************
After these nine one-liners, Dr. Duxbury gives us this series of questions and answers
10. Q: "So the date of conception (of the baby) was August 8th?"
A: "Yes."
Q: "And what were you doing at that time?"
11. Q: "She had three children, right?"
A: "Yes."
Q: "How many were boys?"
A: "None."
Q: "Were there any girls?"
12. Q: "You say the stairs went down to the basement?"
A: "Yes."
Q: "And these stairs, did they go up also?"
13. Q: "Mr. Slatery, you went on a rather elaborate honeymoon, didn't you?"
A: "I went to Europe, Sir."
Q: "And you took your new wife?"
14. Q: "How was your first marriage terminated?"
A: "By death."
Q: "And by who's death was it terminated?"
15. Q: "Can you describe the individual?"
A: "He was about medium height and had a beard."
Q: "Was this a male, or a female?"
16. Q: "Is your appearance here this morning pursuant to a deposition notice which I sent to your attorney?"
A: "No, this is how I dress when I go to work."
17. Q: "Doctor, how many autopsies have you performed on dead people?"
A: "All my autopsies are performed on dead people."
I8. Q: "All your responses must be oral, OK? What school did you go to?"
A: "Oral."
19. Q: "Do you recall the time that you examined the body?"
A: "The autopsy started around 8:30 p.m.."
Q: "And Mr. Dennington was dead at the time?"
A: "No, he was sitting on the table wondering why I was doing an autopsy."
20. Q: "You were not shot in the fracas?"
A: "No, I was shot midway between the fracas and the navel."
21. Q: "Are you qualified to give a urine sample?"
A: "I have been since early childhood."
22. Q: "Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?"
A: "No."
Q: "Did you check for blood pressure?"
A: "No."
Q: "Did you check for breathing?"
A: "No."
Q: "So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy?"
A: "No."
0: "How can you be so sure, Doctor?"
A: "Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar."
Q: "But could the patient have still been alive nevertheless?"
A: "It is possible that he could have been alive and practicing law somewhere."
************************
After tickling us so lustily Dr. Duxbury adds:
Hi,
My name is Mike Duxbury and I am a Police Surgeon ( Forensic Medical Examiner) in Leicester, England. I couldn't agree more with your observations on having more humour in Forensic Medicine. You might like the above jokes. (They still make me laugh every time I read them!)
The last sentence is probably an understatement Dr. Duxbury. Many thanks for such nice jokes.
-Dr. Anil Aggrawal

************ The following joke (claimed to be a true story) was sent on May 12, 2000 by Geo & Joyce LeonardThis is a good one..... bizarre too!

[Bloomberg News Service] A terrible diet and room with no ventilation are being blamed for the death of a man who was killed by his own gas. There was no mark on his body but an autopsy showed large amounts of methane gas in his system. His diet had consisted primarily of beans and cabbage (and a couple of other things). It was just the right combination of foods. It appears that the man died in his sleep from breathing the poisonous cloud that was hanging over his bed. Had he been outside or had his windows been opened, it wouldn't have been fatal. But the man was shut up in his near airtight bedroom. According to the article, "He was a big man with a huge capacity for creating "this deadly gas." Three of the rescuers got sick and one was hospitalized.
************
Many people ask me why I chose Forensic Medicine as a career, and I tell them that it is because a forensic man gets the honor of being called when the top doctors have failed!

************

Forensic Puns Forensic Limericks

************
If you have an interesting forensic story, joke, limerick or any other interesting tidbit related to forensics, please click below.
Yes, I have a forensic joke to tell
Sign My Guestbook View My Guestbook

Email: dr_anil@hotmail.com

You are Visitor No:

since September 2, 1999
when this page was created.