Morgue crew deadly serious about running in marathon

By Kim Irwin

Make no bones about it, the Stiffs take a lot of ribbing. Runners from the West Los Angeles Veterans Affairs Medical Center, they all work in some way with the deceased and they know their team name is an irresistible source of gallows humor. Of course, the big red "187" they wear on their uniform backs doesn’t help - it’s the state penal code number for homicide. Nor does the ice chest they haul to races that’s painted to resemble a coffin nor the skull shirt patches that show, in cross-section, gray mater and neck vertebrae. They figure it will just get worse Sunday, when the team passes a bone instead o f a baton in the 15th annual Jimmy Stewart Relay marathon in Griffith Park. Formed several years ago by the founder of a sort of private mobile morgue service, the Stiffs don’t mind the deadpan jests because they’re found a way to keep in shape and maintain high morale. And in the face of recent federal worker furloughs at the VA medical center, any morale booster is worth its weight in running trophies.

The 13 Stiffs all deal with death professionally. They work in the VA medical center’s morgue, or in decedents affairs, or in the histology division. They also hail from the pathology and brain specimen labs. Competing teams aren’t the only one apt to take dead aim at the Stiffs. Word of the team - and its unusual name - is spreading throughout the massive VA complex in West Los Angeles and, inevitably, the wisecracks are close behind. Officially, however, hospital officials are downright lively when asked about the Stiffs. "We’re very excited, said VA spokeswoman Harriet Bordenave. "Coming off the furloughs, when the morale was very low, this is a morale booster. They’re having fun, and that is what we want our employees to do."

The team founder, Vidal Herrera of East Los Angeles, in known as "El Muerto," of the dead man. He founded Autopsy/Post Services, Inc. and contracts to the VA, UCLA and USC. His company, appropriately, sponsors the Stiffs.

With his friendly smile, Herrera looks like anything but the messenger of death. He is, his teammates say, the motivating force behind the Stiffs. "He’s the man," said Stiffie Mae O. Myart, 54, a family service representative at the VA It was through his business that Herrera met the VA workers who became the Stiffs. It started with Myart, whose obesity, in part, was causing sever health problems. Herrera visited her in an intensive care unit and asked what color flowers she like. When she asked why, he answered her bluntly. "I told her that I’d put those color flowers on her grave, because that was her next step, death, if she didn’t get in shape." Herrera pushed Myart to exercise regularly, and even bought her workout clothes. He encouraged her to run, and when other VA employees expressed an interest in exercising with her, Herrera formed the Stiffs.

For Myart, Herrera was, literally, a life-saver. Now 150 pounds thinner, she was one of the eight Stiffs who completed the L.A. Marathon. "I did it in 10 hours and 39 minutes," boasts Myart, a Los Angeles resident. "It was a challenge for me, but I decided not to be a statistic." Herrera plans to develop an annual marathon to raise money and awareness for organ and tissue donation. He already knows when it would be head - Nov. 1, known as Dia de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead.