The Pima County Medical Examiner's office is in the national spotlight for their work in identifying human remains.
The department has received an award for technology they have perfected to get fingerprints off mummified remains. Identifying bodies is always a challenge for staff, but it's one that brings much needed closure to families who are missing loved ones.
Chief Medical Examiner, Dr. Gregory Hess, said the dry desert climate made this prime ground to perfect the technology.
It's a practice they've used for over a decade, but because of the number of human remains found out in the desert, the medical examiner's office has been able to become a leader in the field.
"It's very easy. A simple solution of sodium hydroxide and water. We soak the hand in the solution and keep watch on it, check it every 24 hours for up to 72 hours, until we feel we can get a perfect fingerprint."
The technique uses a chemical solution to re-hydrate a mummified finger, to produce a perfect print. A decomposing mummified hand gets leathery, and produces a print that is very smudged.
Dr. Hess said between 2011 and 2013, his office used this technique on 76 pairs of hands. Positive fingerprint identifications were made in 34 of the cases after successful rehydration.
"This is one tool we can use to increase the chance of identifying families loved ones," said Dr. Hess.
The technology was good news for organizations like Homicide Survivors. Executive Director, Carol Gaxiola, said positive identification helped bring much needed closure to families who in some cases, waited for years to find a missing loved one.
It was also great news for the non-profit Colibri Center for human rights. Executive Director Robin Reinecke had an office inside the medical examiner's building, and worked side by side with them to relay the news to migrant families, once an identification was made.
Last year, Dr. Hess said 169 migrant remains were found in the Southern Arizona desert. Of the 150 remains in the morgue right now, Hess said almost 100 bodies were unidentified, and tagged as "John Doe".
Their work was helping give these "John Doe's" a name and a face.
"We're on the phone with families every single day. Usually the last time they heard from their loved one was right before they were getting ready to cross the border," said Reinecke.
The organization had 1600 cases active.
"It's medicinal for families. I think that's the easiest way to think about it. For those of us that don't know what it's like to have a missing person, it's like a trauma that happens every single day. Identification, when we can achieve it, it's like medicine for the family."
Dr. Hess said their office was already getting calls from other states who had pending cases in which this technology would be useful.
The technique is set to be published in the 2014 edition of the "Academic Forensic Pathology Journal," said Hess.
Friday 17 January 2014
http://www.tucsonnewsnow.com/story/24476610/identifying-human-remains-pima-county-gaining-national-attention
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