DVI News 1 June 2009
02/Jun/2009
FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF LAW ENFORCEMENT: BODIES, BUT NO NAMES26 May 2009. USA.
There's the homeless man with a curly beard who died in an emergency room in March 2002. There's a round-facedwoman found 25 years ago along a road in the county's tourism district. And there's a man with high cheekbones and deep-set eyes who was discovered in an Altamonte Springs landfill in 1973.
More than 80 of these unidentified bodies have been found in Orange, Osceola, Lake, Seminole and Volusia counties ù 34 of whom were slain.
Now, through Missing Link, an initiative recently launched by the Orlando region's Florida Department of Law Enforcement office, their survivors get a better shot at learning their fate. FDLE uses its specialized knowledge and technical resources to help law enforcement re-examine each of these cold cases, and make sure they've done everything possible to find out who these people are.
Nationwide, advocates for the families of missing people long have complained that police agencies do an inconsistent job handling unidentified remains.
Awareness of this problem has increased during the past five years. Still, only 7,000 of the nation's estimated 50,000 unidentified bodies have been entered into the National Crime Information Center database
Full article at:
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/orl-cold-cases-missing-link-fdle-052609,0,2379006.story
WANNA BE A CORONER? JUST ABOUT ANYBODY CAN - JUST WIN AN ELECTION
26 May 2009. USA.
Coroners in Pennsylvania are legally charged with investigating all violent, accidental, sudden and suspicious deaths.
In that job, they might have to autopsy and photograph bodies, examine death scenes, do toxicology tests, sleuth to identify nameless or decomposing corpses, give heart-breaking news to next of kin, interview witnesses and authorities, issue death certificates, order inquests, archive unclaimed bodies and belongings, and rule whether the death was criminal or otherwise.
You would think such duties would require the most stringent of credentials.
You would be wrong.
The only prerequisite to be a county coroner in Pennsylvania is to be a registered voter.
"In Pennsylvania, the butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker can be the coroner," said Montgomery County Coroner Dr. Walter I. Hofman, whose own credentials fill nine pages of resume.
Pennsylvania does not, in fact, have coroners who are butchers, bakers or candlestick makers.
But there is a coroner who's a garbage hauler and former supermarket shelf-stocker (Huntingdon County's Ronald Morder). Another is an electrician (Juniata County's Lee Snyder). Others include a former unemployed steel worker (Cambria County's Dennis Kwiatkowski), former craft-store owner (Adams County's Patricia Felix), former machinist (Cameron County's Ted Walters) and former business-form printer (Bedford County's Sam Gordon).
Full article at:
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/homepage/20090526_Wanna_be_a_coroner__Just_about_anybody_can_-_just_win_an_election.html
19 BURIED ALIVE IN PNG LANDSLIDE
26 May 2009. Papua New Guinea.
Up to 19 people were buried alive when heavy rains triggered a landslide in remote Papua New Guinea, a report said Tuesday.
Women and children were believed to be among those buried in the collapse, which hit Zongefifi village in Morobe province, on PNG's northwestern coast.
In March, at least seven people, including four children, were killed in a landslide after torrential rains fell in the country's Eastern Highlands.
Full article at: http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900SID/KHII-7SF4UN?OpenDocument
22 KILLED IN DARJEELING LANDSLIDES AFTER CYCLONE
27 May 2009. India.
At least 22 people were killed and several injured in landslides - triggered by Cyclone Aila - in West Bengal's hill district of Darjeeling on Tuesday, police said.
Nearly 100 landslides took place across Darjeeling and its adjoining areas.
Full article at:
http://sify.com/news/fullstory.php?a=jf1aEcaijid&title=22_killed_in_Darjeeling_landslides_after_cyclone&?vsv=TopHP1&?vsv=TopHP1
113 DIED IN HOUSES ON BLACK SATURDAY
28 May 2009. Australia.
New figures reveal 113 people died in houses during the Black Saturday bushfires and 27 were killed outside homes
A profile identifying how and where people died in the devastating fires has emerged during the bushfires royal commission today.
Victoria Police Detective Inspector Paul O'Halloran, who heads the Phoenix Taskforce, presented data to the commission collected by Disaster Victim Identification (DVI) teams following the February 7 fires.
Of the 173 people who died, 113 perished in houses, while 27 died outside homes, the data shows.
Eleven people died in cars, five on roads, five near cars and others were killed in sheds, garages, reserves and hospital following the fires.
Full article at: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25551851-12377,00.html
FIVE CONSTRUCTION WORKERS KILLED IN MEXICO LANDSLIDE
28 May 2009.
At least five Mexican construction workers were killed in a landslide while digging a ditch by a hill in the central town of Huehuetoca, officials said.
A spokesman for the central state of Mexico's state security agency, or ASE, told Efe that rescue teams had recovered the bodies of five workers but were unaware if more people were buried underneath the tons of earth.
Full article at:
http://noticias.terra.com/articulos/act1785620/Five_construction_workers_killed_in_Mexico_landslide/
DEMOLITION DISASTER KILLS INDONESIANS IN MALAYSIA
29 May 2009.
Four Indonesian construction workers were found dead and three more remained trapped under rubble a day after a vacant supermarket building in Malaysia collapsed during demolition, reports said on Friday.
Teguh Wardoyo, head of the Foreign Ministry unit charged with protecting Indonesians overseas, said he had not received official word on the victimsÆ identities. ôWe are still waiting on news from our consulate general officials in Kuala Lumpur on the final identification, as their bodies were trapped in ruins.ö
The bodies will be sent home after an autopsy, the Indonesian Embassy in Kuala Lumpur said.
Full article at:
http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/news/demolition-disaster-kills-indonesians-in-malaysia/278181
AFTER LONG STRUGGLE, ALL THE DEAD WILL BE PUT BACK TO REST IN HOLLYWOOD CEMETERY
29 May 2009. USA. û Margaret Toal.
The hum of a refrigeration unit clicks on and off at the large trailer rig next to Hollywood Cemetery. Inside are new coffins with the remains of unidentified bodies that floated from vaults at the cemetery during Hurricane Ike on the 13th of September.
Through the months, the number of trailers has gone down from three to two, and now, just one. The Hollywood Cemetery governing board has decided the last trailer will leave and the unidentified remains of 10 people will be placed in the empty graves.
When the surge from Hurricane Ike flooded large parts of Orange, the waters knocked concrete tops off of surface vaults and some caskets floated away.
A special federal disaster mortuary team came and provided the new caskets. Sparrow and his wife, also a mortician, were able to identify 15 of the originals.
John King, a member of the cemetery board, said FEMA has been paying for the trailers.
King said the remains all were sent to Lake Charles, La., to be put in new caskets and for forensic testing to help with identification. The Hollywood Community Cemetery Association and volunteers were able to match some of the other remains with vault sites.
Full article at:
http://www.beaumontenterprise.com/news/local/after_long_struggle__all_the_dead_will_be_put_back_to_rest_in_hollywood_cemetery_05-29-2009.html
CAN YOU LOSE YOUR FINGERPRINTS?
29 May 2009. USA.
A 62-year-old man from Singapore was travelling to the U.S. to see relatives last December and was detained after a routine fingerprint scan showed that he actually had none. So how did this happen?
The man, identified in a medical journal case report only as "Mr. S," had been on chemotherapy to keep his head and neck cancer in check. As it turns out, the drug, capecitabine (brand name, Xeloda) had given him a moderate case of something known as handûfoot syndrome (aka chemotherapy-induced acral erythema), which can cause swelling, pain and peeling on the palms and soles of the feetùand apparently, loss of fingerprints.
Forensics expert Edward Richards, director of the Program in Law, Science and Public Health at Louisiana State University, explains that "other diseases, rashes and the like can cause vesicular breakdown of the skin on your fingersùjust a good case of poison ivy would do it." But, he notes, "Left alone, your skin replaces at a fairly good rate, so unless you've done permanent damage to the tissue, it will regenerate."
Full article at: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=lose-your-fingerprints
BANGLADESH CYCLONE VICTIMS FACE CRISIS
30 May 2009.
At least 237 people were killed after Cyclone Aila on Monday hit the low-lying coast north of the Bay of Bengal, where a military and civilian relief operation is under way.
At least 167 people died in Bangladesh while 70 more people were killed in India following Monday's cyclone.
In 2007, more than 3,500 people were killed, most of them in Bangladesh, when Cyclone Sidr hit the same districts.
Full article at:
http://www.watoday.com.au/breaking-news-world/bangladesh-cyclone-victims-face-crisis-20090530-br24.html
SCIENCE OF DEATH REVEALED
31 May 2009. Australia.
SCIENCE WEEK took a look at death yesterday as the Kingston Forensic Medical Centre and a funeral director opened their doors to visitors.
Visitors saw displays of educational tools including skulls, preserved organs and limbs. They quizzed pathologists, police and disaster victim identification experts about their work.
It might have been the last open day at the facility, which no longer meets the needs of Canberra's population. The cool room holds 12 bodies. A new centre in Phillip will hold 60.
Full article at:
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/news/local/news/general/science-of-death-revealed/1527631.aspx
ANCIENT MYANMAR TEMPLE BUILDING COLLAPSES, SIX KILLED
31 May 2009. Myanmar.
A 2,300-year-old Myanmar temple building totally collapsed while workers were attempting to repair it, killing six people and injuring 30, witnesses said Sunday.
Some people were still trapped beneath bricks, bamboo scaffolding and other debris a day after the collapse Saturday, said Tin Shwe, who runs a small shop near the temple.
Full article at: http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2009/5/31/nation/20090531135445&sec=nation
30 KILLED - ILLEGAL PRACTICE BLAMED FOR DEADLY SW CHINA COLLIERY EXPLOSION
31 May 2009. China.
Excessive use of explosives and poor evacuation procedures were to blame for the deaths of 30 people in a southwest China colliery Saturday, a senior official in charge of the country's work safety organization said.
The explosion occurred around 11 a.m. at Tonghua Coal Mine in Anwen Town of Qijiang County, when 131 miners were working about 1,000 meters underground.
One hundred and one miners were rescued, and 77 of them were injured
Full article at: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-05/31/content_11461264.htm
Bus accident kills 15 people
31 May 2009. Indonesia.
FIFTEEN Indonesians were killed on Sunday when an inter-city bus lost control due to a brake failure on Sumatra island, police said, adding that the death toll may rise.
Full article at: http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking%2BNews/SE%2BAsia/Story/STIStory_384117.html
LIFE AND DEATH IN NARCOLAND
31 May 2009. Mexico.
The discovery of nine human heads last November in a seedy east-end neighbourhood û Granjas Familiares de Matamoros û was a barbaric nadir in Mexico's drug wars.
Three of the decapitated heads belonged to police officers: their credentials were stuffed in their mouths. Police also found an obscure note from the assassins that roughly translates: "We were in it with Fatso (El Gordo), but now we're doing this for Three (Tres)."
Autopsying such grisly remains will never be routine for Dr. Antonio Munoz Lara. Nevertheless, the Baja California state coroner increasingly finds himself working on the human detritus of a drug war that is evolving on two fronts
"It gets bloodier all the time," says Munoz
Tijuana could be the poster city for life and death in Narcoland. It's a raw, savage city, where cartels revel in cruelty, the more macabre the better. Living here must be like being trapped in a slaughterhouse where anybody û man, woman, child û could be slung up on hooks at any moment.
ItÆs common for corpses of drug war victims to deliver messages, just as last year's decapitated heads were meant to do.
On a recent May Monday at the morgue, Munoz completes the autopsy of a male corpse, found in an east-side industrial park (another favourite body dump) with a scrawled message. In a culture where everything "narco" gets a nickname, these are narcomensajes.
The autopsy took eight hours because Munoz had to remove 31 bullets from a concentrated area beginning in the lower throat, lungs and diaphragm and extending in fairly straight lines to the liver and kidneys.
He has worked on headless bodies, bodiless heads, heads without lips or faces, corpses without genitals, legs without feet.
Sometimes, he even examines vats of greasy liquid with bits of bone in a lye-water solution or sifts through smoking acid ash. His morgue û like others throughout Mexico û is filled with remains impossible to identify.
Munoz believes everybody deserves to carry a name, in life and death. Sometimes, though, that's not possible.
Full article at: http://www.thestar.com/News/World/article/643192
A TALE OF TWO PATHOLOGISTS
29 May 2009. USA.
It can be a struggle to be a minority working in the sciences. It can be a struggle to be part of a dual-career (two-scientist) couple. When you combine these two well-known challenges, the difficulties are magnified. But, as the careers and marriage of pathologists Terrill Tops and Dorkina Myrick indicate, the difficulties can be overcome.
Tops, an M.D.-trained deputy medical examiner at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP) in Washington, D.C., and Dorkina Myrick, an M.D./Ph.D. physician-scientist, pathologist, and medical officer with the National Cancer Institute (NCI) in nearby Bethesda, Maryland, entered pathology from different directions.
Tops performs autopsies on people who die suspiciously, including members of the military, Department of Defense contractors, and civilians who die while on military property. The remains of all active-duty service members who die in Iraq or Afghanistan are transported to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, where Tops investigates the circumstances that led to death. The autopsies provide cause of death and, in rare cases, are used in court as evidence.
Unlike most forensic pathologists, who are tied to local hospitals or jurisdictions, AFIP medical examiners travel the world. "We're kind of like the rock stars of forensic pathology," he says. Tops enjoys dropping in on an unknown hospital, meeting new people, training the local staff, and learning from them.
And the research opportunities are limitless. AFIP's research collection contains more than 7 million specimens of tissue, including amputated limbs, brains, and bodily fluids that date from the Civil War era. "It's like the Smithsonian of Pathology," he says.
Tops's research, along with mentor and collaborator Howard Harcke, an active-duty colonel who is the chief of forensic radiology at AFIP, is investigating the use of a specialized computed tomography scan to document gunshot injuries.
When Dorkina Myrick When was recruited to NIH, her adviser made it clear that, in addition to becoming a pathologist, she was expected to become a leader in the field--a senior researcher, dean, department head, policymaker, or CEO of a biotechnology firm. But by the end of her residency in 2005, Myrick found her attention pulled in a different direction. Instead of moving to a general pathology or subspecialty fellowship, as is the norm, Myrick became intrigued with scientific policy and administration.
Full article at:
http://sciencecareers.sciencemag.org/career_magazine/previous_issues/articles/2009_05_29/caredit.a0900070
(Tags: dvi)