Mortuary operations in the aftermath of the 2009 Victorian bushfires

Our plain-English summary of Mortuary operations in the aftermath of the 2009 Victorian bushfires, by J. Leditschke, S. Collett, R. Ellen (Forensic Science International, 2011).

The study

• Authors: J. Leditschke, S. Collett, R. Ellen
• Journal: Forensic Science International
• Published: 2011;205(1-3):8-14
• Cited by: 14 articles, as counted by NIH iCite
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher

Abstract

On the day of the 2009 Victorian bushfires the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine activated its emergency plan. Within 48 h a temporary body storage facility was constructed adjacent to the existing mortuary. This temporary facility had the capacity to store up to 300 deceased persons. Pathologists, anthropologists, odontologists, police and mortuary assistants responded from all around Australia, New Zealand and Indonesia. The existing forensic mortuary and staff were divided into two areas: DVI (disaster victim identification) and "routine operations". A high priority for the mortuary was to ensure the casework of the "routine" deceased persons (those cases which were not related to the bushfires) was handled concurrently and in a timely manner. On admission each set of victim remains was given both a Coroner's case number in addition to the DVI number allocated at the scene. The case was CT scanned, examined by a pathologist, an anthropologist, and odontologist and in some instances a fingerprint expert. Where possible a DNA sample was taken. All processes, samples, labels and paperwork underwent a quality assurance check prior to the case completion. Regular audits were conducted. All of post mortem examinations were completed within 20 days of admission. Occupational health and safety issues of the staff were a high priority; this included correct manual handling, infection control and psychological debriefings. During the operation it was found that some remains were contaminated with asbestos. Procedures were set in place to manage these cases individually and each was isolated to reduce the risk of exposure by staff to asbestos. This overall mortuary operation identified a number of significant challenges, in particular the management of multiple parts of human remains for one individual. A new procedure was developed to ensure that all human remains, where possible, were reconciled with identified deceased persons prior to the release to the funeral director. It also highlighted the need to have well documented plans in place including plans for temporary mortuary facilities.

Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

In plain English

This article, by staff of the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine (VIFM), described how its Melbourne mortuary handled remains of people killed in the Victorian bushfires of 7 February 2009. It reported no asbestos measurements or health outcomes. The existing mortuary had capacity for 100 deceased persons (80 stored on any one day) and was already fully used after heatwave deaths in the previous two weeks. Additional storage for possibly up to about 300 bodies was expected to be needed, and six 40-foot refrigerated containers were installed within 18 hours. Routine, non-bushfire autopsies continued in separate rooms. Remains were highly fragmented, sometimes with parts of two people in one body bag, and a review reunited parts before release. Some destroyed buildings were assessed as containing asbestos, and debris arrived with remains. Those cases were labelled as an asbestos risk and examined together in an isolated room. Remains were dampened and examined inside the body bag, avoiding the saw where possible, and staff were decontaminated. The authors concluded that well-tested plans should let a mortuary respond robustly to a disaster of moderate proportions.

We wrote this plain-English summary from the full article with the help of AI, and a second AI model checked each sentence against the article. It is not the authors' wording; the abstract and the article are their own account.

What the study did and found

• Design: Descriptive report of mortuary operations and procedures during a disaster response (not a study of disease or exposure)
• Who was studied: Human remains of victims of the 7 February 2009 bushfires in Victoria, Australia, handled at the VIFM mortuary and a temporary storage facility in Melbourne; the article body does not state the number of victims
• Exposure: Possible asbestos contamination of remains from the debris of destroyed buildings assessed as containing asbestos; no fiber type or exposure levels are given
• Main results:
  • The existing VIFM mortuary had capacity to store 100 deceased persons, with 80 stored on any one day
  • At the time of the bushfires, VIFM body storage was already fully used because of increased deaths during the heatwave of the previous two weeks
  • Initial reports indicated that additional storage might be needed for up to about 300 bodies
  • Six 40-foot refrigerated containers were installed within 18 hours of notification
  • Separate rooms for routine (non-bushfire) work allowed up to 12 autopsies a day, which the authors described as adequate for routine casework
  • Very few intact bodies were recovered; remains were highly fragmented and calcined, and human and animal remains were mixed
  • In some cases evidence of two individuals was found in one body bag
  • On one occasion a wrong DVI number recorded at the scene was detected at post-mortem examination and traced using the second (Coroner's) number
  • Cases with possible asbestos contamination were tagged with a pink asbestos-risk label and isolated for later grouped examination
  • After occupational health and safety advice was obtained, procedures were developed that included examination in an isolated room and decontamination of staff leaving the area
  • The asbestos procedure included dampening the body bag and body, and examining within the body bag while avoiding the saw where possible
• The authors' conclusion: The authors concluded that addressing these challenges in planning, including well-tested protocols for temporary storage and mortuary facilities, should allow a mortuary to respond robustly to a disaster of moderate proportions

Related studies

• Environmental aftermath — L. Claudio (2001)
• Acute eosinophilic pneumonia in a New York City firefighter exposed to World Trade Center dust — W.N. Rom, M. Weiden, et al. (2002)
• The Victorian Comprehensive Cancer Centre lung cancer clinical audit: collecting the UK National Lung Cancer Audit data from hospitals in Australia — L. Mileshkin, C. Dunn, et al. (2019)
• Relative congener scaling of Polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and dibenzofurans to estimate building fire contributions in air, surface wipes, and dust samples — J.D. Pleil, M.N. Lorber (2007)
• Asbestos exposure and fire fighting — S.B. Markowitz, K. Garibaldi, et al. (1991)
• A probability model for evaluating building contamination from an environmental event — R.C. Spicer, H.J. Gangloff (2000)

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