dead bodies are everywhere ~

burning body cause by hot material (500 - 1000 degree celcius) -->

 how we want to determined dead body?

Steps in Disaster Victim Identification (DVI)

To make something go smoother, we must have plan. "he who fails to plan, plan to fails"...

Same goes in disaster victim management. We must have guideline to follow. From my lecture, the lecturer said that most country follow this except America, and it cause chaotic when disaster happen there.

so, disaster victim management has 5 steps,

• the scence of accident -

As a rule, the search for the bodies of victims of a disaster cannot begin until all survivors have been rescued. In order to overcome this initial chaos to the extent possible, a structured search and discovery phase should be prepared in cooperation with the Evidence Collection Team, the Disaster Investigation Team and the Access Control and Security Team. This phase includes the search for bodies, property and evidence.

In order to ensure thorough search and photographic documentation, recovery 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. This method has proven particularly effective for relatively large disaster areas. The grid consists of a base line which proceeds from or runs between identifiable fixed points on the ground as well as parallel lines drawn at intervals for instance of 10 m (but depending of the situation), thus forming square sections in which methodical searches can be conducted. To the extent possible, the grid should cover the entire disaster area.

• collecting postmortem(PM) data

The PM Team collects all relevant dental medical and forensic data obtained from the bodies of deceased victims for the purpose of identifying said victims. The team consists of experts in the fields of fingerprint analysis, forensic pathology, forensic odontology and DNA analysis. All postmortem data are compiled in Pink document dor each victims.

• collecting antemortem(AM) data

The goal of this approach is twofold: to ensure that actual cases of missing persons are not overlooked and to list all actual missing persons in order to facilitate the collection of AM data from relatives on the basis of the corresponding victim lists.

Personnel collecting ante mortem data should be experienced in obtaining detailed reports and must have a thorough knowledge of the layout and purpose of the appropriate forms. Wherever possible, personal (face‐to‐face) interviews are to be conducted. However, exceptional circumstances may require telephone interviews. The location and timing of the inter‐view will be dependent upon the location of the families of the missing persons/potential victims, as well as the facilities available. interviews are documented in Yellow document

A summary of examples of reference samples for AM DNA profiles 

• reconcillation

The Reconciliation Team compares the AM and PM findings submitted by the AM and PM Teams, respectively. For practical reasons, the Reconciliation Team should be set up as near as possible to the Operations Command Centre. Considerable time can be saved in comparing data if a data processing and evaluation software is used. However, no computer program, no matter how effective it may be, can be more than a helpful tool. Final decisions must be made on the basis of all relevant criteria. If there is no possibility to use an evaluation software you find enclosed also the methods for evaluation.

• returning to family/burial 

After all this process finish and bodies can be identified, it will be return to the family, or if still can't be identified, in a case of disaster, dead bodies must be burried within 3 days. If not in a disaster case, it should be kept until their relatives claim for certain period of time. 

Conclusion

Conducting DVI operations in CBRN environments, takes an immense amount of pre‐planning and training. The appropriate equipment must be available before starting any DVI. It takes a considerable amount of teamwork and TIME. DVI practitioners will need to work with other response agencies such as military, fire, scientific officers and radiological experts to accomplish the task safely and effectively.


Refferences :
1. http://www.interpol.int/Public/DisasterVictim/guide/guide.pdf
2. Lecture note Week 5, Management of Dead Victim in Mass Disaster, by dr. Yudha Nurhantari