By turns tragic, humourous and horrifying, the life of a Medical Examiner is never dull as former ME George Burden reveals.
For about my first 15 years in medical practice I acted as a Medical Examiner. To say the least this put me into interesting, sometimes disturbing and occasionally funny situations.
Homicides were fortunately a rarity in my domain, but motor vehicle accidents, suicides and other such mishaps kept me busy.
Human beings show a uniquely inventive streak when it comes to killing themselves. Hooking a hose to the exhaust pipe of an automobile and running it through the window into the car is a perennial favorite. Sometimes this can be accomplished by simply starting a car in a closed garage, which made my job more difficult as it could have been an accidental event, rather than intentional.
Hanging also proves to be an effective suicide method. On one occasion a gentleman surprised his wife “in flagrante delicto” with the neighbor and expressed his displeasure by hanging himself in a backyard tree.
A shotgun placed to the mouth is also a very efficacious way to do yourself in. I remember walking into a house where such an event had occurred. I was puzzled at an egg shell like crunching underfoot as I walked through the living room to get to the bedroom until I realized it was fragments of skull I was treading on.
Motor vehicle accidents were often gruesome. I’ve never purchased a car with a sunroof after one particular incident. In this case, the car had flipped over and the long-haired gent driving would have been fine except for the fact that the sun roof shattered and as the car skidded his hair was trapped, effectively scalping him.
The effectiveness of seat belts became manifest at another accident site where a train had hit a compact car. Though the car was a twisted wreck, the area around driver’s seat was unscathed. Unfortunately, the lack of a seat belt resulted in the driver being catapulted into a nearby field and ending up neatly wrapped around a large boulder.
On another occasion a bootlegger was ferrying a heavy case of moonshine to a lakeside party in a row boat. When the boat accidentally capsized he grabbed the case of liquor and promptly went to the bottom. He was fished out two hours later still clutching his merchandise. (No one knows what eventually happened to the moonshine).
On yet another occasion after an accidental drowning, one of the police officers noticed an object floating near the body. When he picked it up, it proved to be a soggy package of Kleenex. He went to discard the item but I stopped him. When he asked me why, I explained that they could be valuable “tissue” samples.
One interesting case occurred when two fishermen found what appeared to human skeletal remains partly buried in the mud of a nearby river. They ran to the nearest pay phone to call the police and the first fisherman fainted before he could get his story out. The second fisherman was able to summon the gendarmerie and the area was cordoned off while the M.E. was summoned. In this case the astute Medical Examiner noted that the skeleton was in fact made of rubber, no doubt a leftover from the previous Halloween.
Another case underlined the necessity of blocking up your car when working under it, rather than relying on a jack. A middle-aged gent found this out the hard way when after removing a tire he ended up with the rim buried in his chest.
A Medical Examiner never knows when his skills will be called for. I’d gone to a concert in town and was on the highway back home when traffic came to a halt and went nowhere for well over an hour. Finally I got out of my car and walked up the road until I came to a police cruiser, lights flashing, and a deceased pedestrian in the middle of the highway, obviously having been hit by a passing vehicle.
No one wanted to take responsibility for okaying the body to be moved. The circumstances seemed fairly straightforward (intoxication and strolling on highways does not mix). I authorized the body be transferred to the side of the road so that traffic could pass and went back to my car. They never even asked me for ID!
Perhaps the most heart-rending visit I made was to the home of an infant that had suffered SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome). It’s hard to describe the devastation and grief manifest in the faces of the family and my sense of helplessness. For the next few months I would tiptoe several times nightly into my infant daughter’s room to make sure she was breathing.
At some point I would like to go to London and view Scotland Yard’s “Black Museum”. It contains forensic evidence from such infamous cases as that of Jack the Ripper. It is well nigh impossible for the general public to gain admission but they will sometimes allow Medical Examiners in by special invitation.
One day…
Photo Credit
“Body with toe tag” istockphoto
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- Hot Times In Varadero At The Sol Caribe Beach Hotel
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