Inside Florida's Mass Fatality Response: Planning, Preparedness, and Training in Action
In a mass fatality event, providing closure to families and loved ones while supporting the investigative and legal processes, requires a multidisciplinary approach, involving experts from fields such as forensic anthropology, odontology, pathology, and genetics. By leveraging the expertise of these specialists, fast and accurate identification can be achieved through various methods, including DNA profiling, fingerprint analysis, dental records comparison, and anthropological assessment. This session focuses on efforts made to optimize victim identification within emergency management plans. Learn directly from the experiences of the Florida FEMORS mass fatality team as they share their insights on the critical need for readiness, DVI preparedness, and the vital role that DNA plays in victim identification. Through past events and real-life experiences, we can shape more effective future response strategies. Discover the available resources and training programs designed to enhance your ability to respond to disasters effectively. By participating in this session, you will gain knowledge to strengthen victim identification and your emergency management capabilities, ensuring seamless collaboration even in challenging circumstances. Don't miss this opportunity to learn from the experts.
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>> The Amores is the Florida Emergency Mortuary Operations Response System.
It's Florida's Mass Fatality Team and
it is administered out of the University of Florida with funding provided by
the Florida Department of Health.
>> We're running an exercise to let our members
practice what it's like to respond to a mass fatality event.
>> And once a year we do training so that if there is an event, we are prepared
to go out.
We may be called out for a portion of us.
Sometimes the entire team is called out.
>> With this set up, we have a village here,
a disaster village where we can lay out mannequins and
other recovery specimens to rehearse what it's like to recover remains from the
field.
>> And as you can see right behind me is the morgue that has been set up,
that we have set up for our training.
And we do this every time we come out, we set up an entire morgue that
everything that is necessary to identify a set of remains can be done in.
And we have refrigerated units to keep those remains safe.
And there's also control over everything so
that there is no way for unauthorized personnel to be able to access our area.
>> When FEMORS is training, we try to prepare for
every type of incident that we may be exposed to.
It may be a similar situation, whether it's a fire or a shooting.
But every incident is different because there's different people involved.
There's different weather involved, different family members involved.
So we try to keep core to our principles and
we're there to help the families in whatever it takes.
>> Nobody expects a disaster.
Nobody wants a disaster and you certainly don't want one in the community that
you serve.
But the unfortunate reality is that mass fatality events happen.
The one thing every disaster has in common that they have nothing in common.
We have yet to go to two disasters in which we respond the same way.
We jokingly say we are all members of AA, which is adapt and
adjust because there is no way to know how you are going to respond to a
hurricane
versus a tornado versus a crash of any kind or a fire.
>> Preparation being prepared and knowing what technology is out there to be
able
to help you do a job like this is critical.
>> So when Seymour's got together after the first year or so,
we put together a little handbook of what we hope to accomplish,
what our job descriptions were.
That has now evolved into something we call the Field Operations Guide or FOG.
>> Our Field Operations Guide is over 600 pages.
And that is essentially Seymour's plan for a mass fatality response.
There are so many moving parts that both on the anti-mortem side with setting
up
a family assistance center, the DPMU itself, the equipment, the roles that
people have to play,
the standards and best practices for actually collecting the data.
This type of work is impossible to do without a plan and it has to be a very
detailed plan.
It's not something that you can just kind of make up as you go along and follow
the path of least resistance.
The most important thing is to have the plan and be able to work the plan.
This is our annual full-scale exercise.
We are obligated to contractually to do this once a year.
And this gives us a chance to do a couple of things.
One is we interface with our National Guard partners,
the fatality search and recovery teams who are partnered with us for most of
every deployment.
There are partners for disaster site recovery and human remains storage.
There are a couple of National Guard teams in Florida that we partner with.
So this is our chance to show them how to implement forensic skills to document
human remains
out in the environment at the disaster site, properly document where that
recovery actually occurs,
train them with proper human remains, handling protocols, transport protocols,
and then we get them to transport the remains back to our mobile morgue.
So overall the training exercise, there are cadavers, both real and artificial,
that will be placed out in an area where there has been some sort of a disaster
And what happens is the search and recovery are the first ones out.
They go out and they find label and collect remains and then they start
bringing them into
the morgue area where there is a triage.
We determination is made as to what samples should probably be taken.
And each set of remains has a minder that is assigned to them and it's that
person's
responsibility to bring the set of remains through the morgue and go to the
appropriate stations.
So my specific role is to manage the database that we use to collect the anim
ortum or pre-death
information from families and the post-mortem information from the remains or
the victims
that we find when they're recovered.
Secondary to that, I'm also the logistics officer for our victim information
center team.
So if they need equipment, supplies, that's part of my responsibility to keep
them up and running.
With a mass fatality incident, you don't know who the person is.
So we come in and interview families.
We gather the information about their loved one and then we examine the bodies
and the
remains of the victims that we find, try to connect the dots to identify who
this person
is.
The eight paves that we use has a lot of information.
There's over 380 data points.
Some of that information is for what we call eliminators.
If you're trying to find a match to somebody, our remains or body that you've
recovered
in the morgue, then you want to eliminate having to look at all of the reports.
So like if somebody has a tattoo, you want to find all the family members that
had mentioned
their loved ones has the tattoo.
So you can search and say, "I want to see tattoos," and it may eliminate a
whole lot
of records that you don't have to look at.
Then you can do the same thing with the morgue records of the disaster victim
packet, as
we call it, when you can say, "Okay, show me everyone we've recovered that has
a tattoo,"
and then you can start comparing tattoos to see if you find a possible match to
begin
that identification process and start connecting the dots.
One of the tools that FEMORS uses in its toolbox to help identify a missing
person or a victim
from a mass fatality incident is DNA.
Well, DNA has come to be very important.
In years past, obviously, it used to take weeks to get DNA.
Then it would get down to days.
And as we saw in the collapse of the condo in Miami, it comes down to a matter
of 90 minutes.
So the evolution of DNA technologies has really advanced, as it has been
advancing, it has
made all of this much, much easier.
We can use much smaller samples.
We can use samples that are more deteriorated than in the past.
And the technologies, especially with something like rapid DNA technology,
really enhances
our ability to do our job in a situation like this.
The rapid DNA at this point in time gives us a very powerful technology that
most people
understand that can be utilized very quickly.
One of the other questions that we're often asked before we're allowed to
collect a DNA
sample, particularly if it's from family members, is just what are you going to
do with that
DNA sample?
What database is it going to be plugged into?
And then how are you going to protect my privacy when this is all done and
essentially
destroy these genetic samples so they're not out there?
So explaining the whole process of how this is an interconnected database, but
it's just
used for this instance.
It's not going to be compared to criminal databases.
Putting them at ease is how we're going to handle that type of genetic
information, exactly
what it's going to be used for has led to a much greater acceptance or
willingness for
family members to come forward and be sampled for their genetic material.
While we're interviewing families filling out that eight-page that I mentioned,
we do
ask families if they would like to give a DNA sample.
So we do ask and if they are allowing us to do that, we'll send them right over
to the
DNA station and do a buckle swab and go ahead and be able to get that reference
sample right
away.
As an example, the surf side in Miami, when the condo fell, the samples that we
were taking
at the beginning of the process were somewhat different than the samples we
were taking towards
the end because of skeletonization, insects, the condition of the remains, the
level of
decomposition.
So we had to make a decision on each individual that we were presented with as
to how we were
going to sample those remains.
When they initially responded to the disaster, rapid instruments were set up
immediately to
start collecting DNA from the victims' families.
By the time we were taking DNA from the remains coming out of the disaster site
, they already
had a full database of as many of the victims' families as possible.
And that was an internal database being held within the instrument.
And so as we were working and the rapid instrument was doing well with the
tissues that it was
being provided or the samples, there were immediate associations of that set of
remains
with families so the interviewers could then go back and call the victims'
families in
and interview a little bit more intensely and be able to make sure that this
was an appropriate
match.
As far as theme works goes, our team members are forensic professionals from
throughout
the state.
Many of them work in the crime laboratory system.
They are crime scene analysts with our cities and counties in Florida.
Many of them are medical legal death investigators.
Our forensic pathologist come to us from the Florida medical examiner system.
So they're all professionals that do their work every day and they volunteer to
come
to a training event like this.
And then when there is a disaster or a need and they are deployed, they become
University
of Florida employees.
We get people who have qualifications in those forensic sciences.
Our job is not to teach them how to do their job, it's to teach them what has
to be done
in the job, the end result, if you will.
So that's where our focus is in getting them trained and how to accomplish what
they need
to accomplish.
And we do that in a group setting and we do it to the best of our ability.
Some people are curious about how we get into this field or why we think we
have something
to offer.
I can only speak for myself.
My leadership ability of running Pinellas County's medical examiner office,
running the
Gainesville Medical Examiner's Office for many, many years, they exhibited
themselves
and that's why I was selected to become the first commander of FEMORS.
And it takes patience to be able to do this.
I didn't know that I really wanted to do mass fatality response, but if you get
into
forensic science and eventually there's going to be an incident, you're going
to be called
in to assist.
And that's kind of what started it for me.
On the FEMORS team was just a regular FEMORS member.
I was on the DPMU, I was in the logistics chief for a while and now I'm the
commander
and director.
So since 2002, we have done a lot of deployments and been to quite a few places
with FEMORS.
This is something that I can do.
I don't have a problem with smells or visuals and so it's something that I can
do easily.
And I just feel like there's a real need to do it.
It's not something that a lot of people can do and it's just something so away
for me
to give back to my community.
As a funeral director for the past 40 years, I've had to help a lot of families
deal with
the final arrangements for their loved ones.
One of the reasons that I'm involved in FEMORS is because when somebody loses a
loved one
through some type of incident, whether it be a plane crash or fire, we've had a
lot of
active shooter situations in the United States these years.
If somebody got on an airplane or they went out to a nightclub and they don't
ever come
home.
It's a lot more of a traumatic and emotional experience for them to have to go
through.
So this dealing with this type of situation is much more important to me and it
's why
I became involved in the FEMORS situation to try to help those families dealing
with
a loss during that traumatic time.
We bring a lot of people from different agencies, different walks of life
together to try to
form a cohesive group that performs well together as a team to bring some peace
or some calmness
into a very chaotic situation.
All the different agencies that have to respond to provide either law
enforcement, stuff to
families, whether they need support, medications, housing.
So we try to bring some peace to the families to know that their loved ones are
being looked
for, being cared for.
So we feel it's very important to do this training and the exercises that we do
every
year.
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