WHAT HAPPENS WHEN WE DIE?

Our bodies are vessels for life, but in death they undergo a cascade of chemical and biological changes

- WORDS AILSA HARVEY

When a person dies, which doctors define as the moment the heart stops beating, the brain is the next organ to fail, causing a person to lose consciousness in seconds.

Consciousness is what shapes a person's experience of the world, their personality, awareness and any people they make a connection with. The physical body, however, undergoes a long process of decay that breaks the body down and returns nutrients to the earth. Some cells don't die within seconds and can take minutes, hours or even days to stop their activity.

When the heart stops, oxygen can no longer be pumped around the body and body tissues lose the ability to function or release energy through respiration. Organs that maintain their function for hours after death can be surgically removed and repurposed to give someone sick another chance at a healthy life. The deceased person needs to have joined the organ donation register while they were alive for this to legally take place.