TWIN FALLS — Pretend, for a moment, that you die at the end of this sentence.

What happens to your body? Where does it go? Who handles it?

That all depends.

Follow this flowchart and its hypothetical scenarios to find out everything you’ve always wondered about life in the afterlife.

You died at home

If you’re home, chances are your family or friends will call 911. Law enforcement and emergency medical technicians will arrive on scene. If the EMTs determine you’re dead, police will call the coroner.

Coroner or one of his deputies arrives

The coroner, Dennis Chambers in Twin Falls, immediately begins an investigation. He takes photos, records what you’re wearing and attempts to identify you. If your family isn’t there, he tries to contact them from numbers he finds in your wallet, purse or cell phone. Once he contacts them, he pieces together your medical history. The coroner consults with law enforcement about how they found the body, what condition it was in, etc. If he determines your death was natural, he signs the death certificate.

Coroner calls a mortuary

Chambers has a list of mortuaries, and when a person dies, he calls the next mortuary on the list. Let’s say, for your death, it’s Reynolds Funeral Chapel. Two people from the mortuary arrive on scene and take your body to a hearse via a stretcher. If your family is present, mortuary representatives will inquire about burial or cremation.

Your body is prepared

If your family chooses burial, your clothes are removed and your body is placed on a table at the funeral home. First, your body is positioned for viewing. Contact lenses lined with bumps are placed in your eyes to prevent the lids from opening. Your mouth is stapled shut. Your hands are folded over your chest. If your family chooses, they can now view your body.

Your body is embalmed

At Reynolds, licensed mortician Trent Stimpson embalms you in a two-hour process. He makes an incision near your clavicle, exposing your carotid artery and jugular vein. Stimpson analyzes your body to predict how much embalming fluid to put in. He inserts a tube into the artery and a machine pumps a mixture of embalming fluid, dyes and hydrating lotions into your vascular system. The chemicals force your blood out the jugular vein. The blood flows through a drain into Twin Falls’ city sewer system.

If your body sustained trauma during death, Stimpson will reconstruct any damaged body part using clay and wax. It’s an art, he says. If you lost an ear, Stimpson can build you a new one from pipe cleaners and clay.

After the fluids are inserted, he stitches up the incision, masks it in wax, and rubs hydrating lotions over your hands and face.

Your body is wrapped in a sheet and stored in a cooling locker.

He signs your death certificate.

Funeral director meets with your family

After your death has sunk in with your family, they and the funeral director plan your services. He calls musicians, the cemetery and a minister, if that was your preference. Your family selects a casket or urn, plans the visitation.

Your death notice is written and sent to the Times-News.

Your visitation is held

Family members bring clothes to the funeral home, and Stimpson dresses you and touches up your face with cosmetics if you are to be buried. You are placed in your casket and wheeled into the funeral home chapel, or your urn is carried in.

Your funeral is held

Funeral home employees transport all the flowers from your visitation — and you inside the casket or urn — to a church where services are held. After that, your body or ashes is taken to the cemetery. There is a short graveside service. Your casket is lowered into a vault in the ground.

In Twin Falls, all caskets must be sealed in vaults — concrete boxes that enclose your casket, thwart decomposed material from leaching into the soil and prevent the ground from sinking in over your grave.

If you were cremated, you are interred.

You’re found elsewhere

If the coroner suspects foul play, he will conduct a more thorough on-scene investigation, working with law-enforcement detectives who have been called to the scene. Law enforcement sets up a perimeter and collects evidence: bullet casings, weapons, fingerprints.

Coroner contacts your family

When the coroner and law enforcement determines they’ve collected all the evidence they can, the coroner calls a funeral home.

Coroner takes samples

At the funeral home (there is no morgue in Twin Falls), the coroner collects samples from your body — blood, urine, tissue — that are sent to the hospital lab for analysis. If he thinks an autopsy is necessary, he contacts a forensic scientist in Ada County, where all Twin Falls autopsies are performed.

Your autopsy is performed

Your body is loaded into an unrefrigerated county vehicle and, with a police escort, driven to Boise for the autopsy. Your body is driven back to the mortuary in Twin Falls while the coroner waits six to eight weeks for the autopsy results.

Your body is cremated

First, the funeral home meets with your family to review the cremation process. The funeral director will ask if your body contains anything inorganic, such as pacemakers or artificial body parts that may explode or interfere with the cremation process. If the answer is yes, those items are removed. Your family has the option of viewing the cremation to ensure it is indeed your ashes they receive.

You are wrapped in a sheet and taken via hearse to one of two crematories in this area. Your body is placed in a wooden box, inserted into an incinerator and burned at temperatures near 1,200 degrees. Your family can watch, if they choose, and someone in your family can press the button that closes the incinerator door.

It takes about two hours to burn your body and six hours for it to cool. Afterward, your ashes are swept out and placed into a receptacle. Then, the incinerator is vacuumed, and the contents of the bag are emptied into the receptacle. A numbered coin is also placed inside with your ashes. The numbered coin ensures your ashes are properly identified. Your ashes are returned to the funeral home.

Your ashes are taken home

Relatives can either take your ashes home with them, or choose to have them scattered if you are not interred. If your ashes are to be scattered, they can be stored at the funeral home until your family decides to dispose of them. At Reynolds, they recommend not buying an urn if your ashes are to be scattered. They suggest a plastic receptacle that is cheaper.

You died at a hospital

Let’s say you die at St. Benedicts in Jerome. Chances are, your family is already at the hospital. If so, they can spend as much time as they like with your body before a nurse comes in and disconnects the tubes. Before you die, hospital staff will attempt to find out if you are an organ donor. By law, the hospital is required to contact Intermountain Donor Services, a Salt Lake city-based group that coordinates organ transplants in the Intermountain West .

If you have been at the hospital less than 24 hours, the coroner is contacted. If not, the hospital calls a funeral home, and your family signs paperwork that releases your body into their care.

If you are on the Idaho organ donor registry — usually indicated on your driver’s license — IDS contacts your family and the hospital to obtain medical records and history. If they deem your tissues or organs worthy of harvest, an operating room nurse, physician’s assistant or other trained technician will harvest any available tissue. Organs can be recovered only by a transplant physician.

If you are not on the list, you family can elect to donate your organs or tissues.

After your tissues and organs are harvested, a team of transplant physicians from Salt Lake City take your organs to a hospital nearest the next recipient on an organ-transplant list.

Your body is stitched up and bathed before it’s taken to the funeral home.