"He'd been deboned like a piece of sausage,"

Not to be picky, but how do you debone a sausage. Or, if you are having to debone a sausage something is very wrong.

On another note, if the family had authorised harvesting how else did they expect it to occur?

For the record, when I die, I say use what you can and cremate the rest and dig it into the garden.