A WOMAN says she can earn up to £63,000 a year in a job others would find dead scary.
Jenn Park-Mustacchio is a funeral director and embalmer who works in New Jersey, USA.
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She spends her days scrubbing down corpses before pumping them full of preservative fluid – and she is paid by the job, allowing her to rake in the cash.
Jenn told The Guardian in 2013: “The median annual income for funeral directors in the US is over $52,000 (£41,935), with the annual salary in New Jersey averaging above $79,000 (£63,709).
“Trade embalmers have the potential to make significantly more than the average funeral director depending on how many locations they work for and how busy those locations are.”
Jenn says her day begins when someone dies before heading to the funeral home to begin the embalming process.
She makes an incision at the right collar bone before draining blood from the arteries and pumping a concoction of formaldehyde-based chemicals that embalm the dead.
Jenn then “vigorously” washes the corpse with a soapy sponge to not just clean the body, but allow the blood to drain and embalming fluid to spread through the corpse.
Chillingly, the body then turns a “rosy” colour, meaning the embalming fluid has distributed successfully.
With the organs all still in the body, Jenn then sews up the incision points and the body is ready to be dressed up and returned to the mourning family.
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In such a morbid job, it’s perhaps unsurprising that the embalmer has had a number of harrowing experiences while at the table.
One such incident came when she heard a “whisper” from a body bag in a darkened room at 3am.
She explained: “I approached with caution expecting the person inside could be alive.
“I found a tape recorder that I later found out was playing a Buddhist chant.”
Despite the grim daily tasks, Jenn says the job allows her to spend more time with her family and she can chose to work as much or as little as she wants.
And because she is licensed to manage all aspects of the funeral, from embalming to organising, it means her potential earning power can vast exceed that of other professions.
