ANTE MORTEM AND POST MORTEM

DATA: AN INTRODUCTION TO DVI

Ulfa Camelia Indiasari, MD

FORENSIC MEDICINE AND MEDICOLEGAL DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF MEDICINE
HASANUDDIN UNIVERSITY
 September 11, 2011
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.
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.
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 examiners office on First Avenue and
Thirtieth Street. The city ordered 30,000 body bags, and a
bargecarrying pallets of ice to keep remains from
decomposingto 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 Chicagothe
most destructive aviation accident in the United States
prior to September 11killed 273.
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.
 DISASTER VICTIM IDENTIFICATION
One of the International Criminal Police
Organization (ICPO / INTERPOL) forensics
expertise
A DVI operation goals is to applicate
international standards in making a
positive identification of the victims

www.interpol..int
 DISASTER
An unexpected event causing the death
DISASTER or injuring many people

A major catastropic event resulting in

OPEN the deaths of number of unknown
DISASTER individuals for whom no prior records
or descriptive data are available

A major catastropic event resulting in

CLOSED the deaths of number of individuals
DISASTER belonging to a fixed, identifiable group

DVI Guide: Interpol 2009

 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 victims and DVI
personel

DVI Guide: Interpol 2009

What is Identity?
identity whatever makes an entity definable and
recognizable, in terms of possessing a set of qualities that
distinguish it from entities of a different type.

identification the act of establishing that identity.

Forensic human identification

 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

 METHOD OF IDENTIFICATION
Basic principle : Comparing two set of
data.
Primary
Fingerprint analysis
Comparative dental analysis
DNA analysis
Secondary
Personal / Medical description
Personal effect
Examples of types of remains (referring to the head and face) that can be encountered in mass
disasters: on the left, burned remains; in the center, severely traumatized remains; on the right,
badly putrefied.
 STEP OF IDENTIFICATION PROCESS
Scene Processing
Post Mortem and Evidence Data Collection
Ante Mortem Data Collection
Reconciliation and Identification
Debriefing
 DISASTER SITE
First priority is to obtain an overview of the
scope of the disaster
 DISASTER SITE
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.
 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
 POST MORTEM DATA
POST MORTEM DATA : all obtainable data
about a dead body that may assist in its
identification
 RECONCILIATION AND IDENTIFICATION
Comparing POST MORTEM DATA with ANTE MORTEM DATA