Forensic technicians spend days, nights with dead
The Boone/Calloway County Medical Examiner's Office services 35 Missouri counties.
Published May 4, 2010
The work of a forensic technician is a 24/7/365 operation, forensic investigator Dori Burke said.
Burke works for the Boone/Callaway County Medical Examiner's Office, located in University Hospital. This department services 35 counties in Missouri.
"Our work starts when somebody dies," she said.
For Burke, who has been a forensic investigator for 14 years, the job is all about communication between herself, the three doctors in the department and the two forensic technicians. As a forensic investigator, Burke said she goes out to the scenes where the bodies were found.
"Any death that's not natural, you go to the scene," Burke said.
Forensic pathologists perform autopsies with the assistance of forensic technicians, Burke said.
Forensic technician Jason Stewart said he is not bothered by the nature of his work.
"It doesn't freak me out," he said.
Stewart, who has a background in law enforcement and investigative work, said the first thing forensic technicians do when a body comes in is prep it.
For prepping, technicians like Stewart take pictures of the body bag, the seal and the number on the bag and the body as is, he said. The technicians then strip and clean the body, take pictures of the face and look for identifying marks, which can be things like scars and tattoos, Stewart said.
"Once you prep them you put them back in the cooler," Stewart said.
After that, one of the three doctors in the department performs an examination, in which the heart and lungs are removed. Then the technicians take out the rest of the organs, Stewart said. Every day brings something different.
"You never really know until you get here," he said. "You don't know how many bodies there are."
Some days are busier than others, he said.
"The most bodies to come in a day was seven," he said. "We started at 4 in the morning and got done at 6:30 at night."
A typical autopsy can take anywhere from one to one and a half hours. Stewart said a homicide usually takes longer, anywhere from one to three hours, but it all depends on the body's condition.
When performing autopsies, Stewart said the abnormalities in the human body jump out at him.
"It's amazing how out of whack your body can be and still function," he said. "Then it becomes a question not of how did you die, but why were you alive?"
Stewart said as a forensic technician, he develops a morbid sense of humor as a coping mechanism, but despite the nature of the job, he likes it.
"It's not stressful at all," Stewart said. "It's relatively simple. The hardest part is learning the medical terms."