7/13/2009 (Monday) Diagraming

July 13, 2009 Monday
Diagramming

Today was the first day that we had an accident in the early afternoon, but we are attributing it to the heat. Today was hot, about 97 degrees; even the wind was hot. So when we were called to this collision on a dirt road that was very dusty, and the sun was beating down on us with the hot wind, it was not ideal circumstances. The wreck was the first time that I really saw Ed and Mark work together on tire tracks. I saw multiple tire tracks on this dirt road, and at times some would disappear and reappear. However, Mark and Ed were able to follow the tracks and trace where they moved on the road. Mark and I followed the tracks with a measuring wheel, documenting when the vehicle moved to different areas on the road based upon the track marks.

July 15, 2009 Wednesday
We went over the notes that I had taken and Mark drew the accident scene making sure to note where the tracks told us the vehicle moved. Now I am going to work on doing the key for the measurements, describing exactly what happened at each measurement. I am excited to start trying to put into practice the diagram skills Mark has taught me. It will take a lot of practice to get to the level that Mark is at now though. He is very good!

I have realized that there is a lot of information in studying crime scenes. A well functioning team of investigators has to have a variety of different knowledge and skills present in their members. For example, Mark and Ed bring a lot to the Fremont County Coroner staff. Ed brings his background in EMS, with the police force, his interest in photography and history, and he knows a good deal about Native American cultures. Mark brings his experience as a nurse, an artist, a hippie, and he has an extensive knowledge of the Shoshone and Arapahoe cultures. Mark traveled extensively which has brought him into contact with different people and practices. These two men are very good at their jobs and work well together when investigating a scene. They have a relative routine down when they work a scene and what each knows what information to collect. Obviously, the routine and what needs to be done varies for every scene, but they work well together and everything gets done. While they both have a lot of talents, they acknowledge when individuals with more or different skills need to be brought in, thus the underlying reason for Ed’s rather large staff. Mark informed me today that while he was a nurse and could identify what bones are, what he hasn’t ever taken is an anthropology class and would not feel comfortable stating that a vertebrae was a cervical/thoracic/lumbar vertebrae. For this reason on the coroner's staff are two archaeologists that are contracted out by Ed when the need arises. Also on staff are the funeral home directors who take care of evidence that may end up with them and to work hospice cases. In addition, there is a dentist for dental identification, and a whole other set of people with knowledge in different areas.

One such area is physics. The crash that we are working on this dirt road involved a vehicle towing a car and the two vehicles ended up in different locations. Using physics one could identify how each vehicle was damaged, and the debris and trace evidence around the area explained how each piece would have been dislodged/disconnected from the vehicle and flown to the position that it was recovered in. There is probably a company that does that sort of complex physics and could tell us that information, and most likely there is a computer program to help them with that process that would be ridiculously expensive. (Luke, that could be of interest to you- if you feel like expanding into the forensic field). All of this comes down to a good description of the forensic field- everything can be a part of the forensic field and no one can do it alone, because as much as one wants to think they know everything, they don’t.

Currently, I have been building my skills for forensic work by learning how to take pictures at a scene, how to document the placement of human remains, what general information needs to be collected to write a report, how to write a report, how the filing system works, how to work around grieving people (which is something that differs in every situation), how different law enforcement agencies function and how we work with them, how to work with families to try to keep all parties “happy” - whether they be Shoshoni, Arapahoe, or non-native, working with the medical information from autopsies, EMS, and practicing medical doctors who we have to request medical information from, and learning Wyoming law in the case of fatalities. I have been acquiring these from a plethora of sources with my main supporters being Ed, Mark, Erin, and other deputy coroners who are very patient in answering all my questions each day. Very few interns can say they have learned this much- which makes this internship very special. And this does not begin to touch upon the wonderful experiences I have with Ed and Roni outside of the office. With that said I still have more to learn and I have updated my goals to include the following for me to still experience:

1) See an embalming
2) Learn more about medications
3) Research information about the environment’s impact on the body (mainly body farm information - water and bugs).
4) To see how a coroner/deputy coroner answers questions in a court of law

While these may be my current goals, there are many more that will come up, because every case brings a new set of methods and information to be explored. What an interesting field.