ANTE MORTEM AND POST MORTEM DATA: AN INTRODUCTION TO DVI

1. ANTE MORTEM AND POST MORTEM DATA: AN INTRODUCTION TO DVI Ulfa Camelia Indiasari, MD FORENSIC MEDICINE AND MEDICOLEGAL DEPARTMENT FACULTY OF MEDICINE HASANUDDIN UNIVERSITY

2. September 11, 2001 On September 11, 2001, two commercial airliners were hijacked by terrorists and flown into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City. Within two hours of the first attack, both of the World Trade Center towers collapsed and changed the forensic investigations forever.

3. In an unprecedented rescue effort, hundreds of workers formed a bucket brigade line to carefully remove the debris to uncover the thousands of people trapped underneath the collapsed World Trade Center towers.

4. The New York City morgue was capable of handling up to 200 bodies, but the list of suspected victims was so large that a temporary morgue was set up in a hangar at La Guardia Airport. A convoy of 10 refrigerated tractor trailer trucks, draped with American flags, were parked outside of the medical examiner’s office on First Avenue and Thirtieth Street. The city ordered 30,000 body bags, and a barge—carrying pallets of ice to keep remains from decomposing—to be unloaded at the nearest pier. The magnitude of this disaster could not be compared with anything in the past. The Oklahoma City bombing killed 168 people, and the crash of American Airlines Flight 191 in Chicago—the most destructive aviation accident in the United States prior to September 11—killed 273.

5. But in just 48 hours of the twin towers’ collapse more than 4,000 people were reported missing and the numbers grew. The total count fluctuated as duplicate names were crossed out and new victims were reported. Six weeks later authorities reported 4,136 victims, including the 157 passengers and crew members aboard both airplanes, but the official figure after six months was fixed at 2,823 people lost onthat day.

6. DISASTER VICTIM IDENTIFICATION One of the International Criminal Police Organization (ICPO / INTERPOL) forensics expertise A DVI operation goals is to applicate international standards positive identification of the victims in making a www.interpol..int

7. DISASTER An unexpected event causing the death or injuring many people DISASTER A major catastropic event resulting in the deaths of number individuals for whom no prior records or descriptive data are available OPEN DISASTER of unknown A major catastropic event resulting in the deaths of number of individuals belonging to a fixed, identifiable group CLOSED DISASTER DVI Guide: Interpol 2009

8. DISASTER MANAGEMENT  Every disaster response operation begin with emergency measures designed to prevent or reduced further danger  First-aid for injured victims  Personal security measures  Property security measures  The protection of life has priority over all other measures  personel victims and DVI DVI Guide: Interpol 2009

9. What is Identity? “identity”  whatever makes an entity definable and recognizable, in terms of possessing a set of qualities that distinguishitfromentitiesofadifferent type. “identification”theactofestablishingthatidentity. Forensic human identification

10. Forensic Identification The requirement to establish identity (deceased or living) tend to fall into three wide categories:  Criminal investigation  Accident and mass disaster incident  War crimes and genocide Forensic human identification

11. METHOD OF IDENTIFICATION Basic principle : Comparing two set of data. Primary Fingerprint analysis Comparative dental analysis DNA analysis Secondary Personal / Medical description Personal effect

12. Examples of types of remains (referring to the head and face) that canbe encountered in mass disasters: on the left, burned remains; in the center, severely traumatized remains; on the right, badly putrefied.

13. STEP OF IDENTIFICATION PROCESS  Scene Processing  Post Mortem and Evidence Data Collection  Ante Mortem Data Collection  Reconciliation and Identification  Debriefing

14. DISASTER SITE First priority is to obtain an overview of the scope of the disaster

15. DISASTER SITE • In order to ensure thorough search and photographic documentation, and victim identification teams require accurate maps of the disaster area. As far as possible, the disaster site should be overlaid with a grid in order to facilitate search operations. recovery

16. ANTE MORTEM DATA • ANTE MORTEM DATA : data obtained from relatives, friends and/or physicians of the possible victim or missing person and that may assist in an identification

17. POST MORTEM DATA  POST MORTEM DATA : all obtainable data about a dead body that may assist in its identification

18. RECONCILIATION AND IDENTIFICATION Comparing POST MORTEM DATA with ANTE MORTEM DATA