in physical, mental, and spiritual ways. Organizations such as the American Red Cross can serve with the aid of volunteers and other organizations in providing food, medical care, and other services. A scheduled informational update will be provided to families on a regular basis. This often occurs twice daily for the entire group. Some families may live out of town or are otherwise unable to attend these updates; they can dial into a system and listen to the updates in real time. The center’s location available space is important to the functionality. The center should not be so close to the site of the incident as to provide a constant view of the recovery efforts to the families. The ever presence of sights, sounds, and smells of the aftermath will provide undue anxiety and stress on loved ones. However, the center should be close enough to allow officials involved in the recovery and the center efforts to easily travel from one to the other. This will be especially important for those who will be working on the recovery efforts and providing updates to the families. Certain rooms and areas will need to be established within the center, such as private areas for interviews, private rooms for official death notifications, an area for medical care that may be needed, and private areas for mental health and spiritual care. If a hotel is serving as the family assistance center, it is highly recommended to remove bedroom style furniture, such as beds, from the rooms that will be used for interviews, notifications, and counseling. There should be sofas and chairs used in rooms utilized for these purposes.
may not know yet whether their loved one will be rescued or their body will be recovered. These interviews could occur as soon as the first day of, or following, the MFI. Introducing one’s self as a funeral director may also give the impression of making funeral arrangements rather than assisting families of victims following a tragedy. Secondly, the event, and thus the deaths resulting from the event, is likely to garner widely covered media attention. The tragic and unexpected nature of the death is a primary contributing factor for the media coverage. Inversely, the families of the victims will likely be grasping for any and all the information they can get. The families will want to know as much as they can as quickly as they can. However, all the information being reported by the media will not always be completely factual and presented with the most appropriate delivery for the families. This is not meant to portray the media as being intentionally untruthful or inaccurate. Often, in times such as these, there are both facts and speculations being reported through the media. Though the media may clearly state when speculation is not indeed as factual, that does not mean grieving families will not mistakenly take the speculated information as factual. Additionally, media outlets will likely be eager to interview, get a statement from, or even catch a brief glimpse of the families of victims. A family assistance center also provides a somewhat safe haven for families. It is a dedicated place for family members to gather with other families experiencing some of the same emotions, fears, and uncertainties. It provides a place in which volunteers can provide care for these families
DISASTER MORTUARY OPERATION RESPONSE TEAMS (DMORT)
they are trained in evidence-recovery procedures. Certain incidents may require decontamination of remains and personal effects, which the teams are prepared and qualified to do. Overall, DMORTs can provide transportation, storage, documentation, and recovery of forensic evidence; recovery of physical evidence; determination of nature and extent of injuries; identification of victims by scientific means; and certification of cause and manner of death. The citizens who comprise these teams are experts in their respective fields as funeral directors, medical examiners, pathologists, forensic anthropologists, finger print specialists, forensic odontologists, dental assistants, administrative specialists, and security specialist. When they are activated and deployed in the wake of an MFI, they strive to quickly and accurately identify victims while supporting local mortuary services. There are several areas in which DMORTs can provide technical assistance and/or consult on fatality management and mortuary affairs. The teams can establish temporary morgue facilities in which many of their duties and functions may be performed. In these temporary morgues, the teams can track and document human remains and personal effects; assist with determining cause and manner of death; perform postmortem data collection; perform forensic dental pathology; and perform forensic anthropology methods. The teams are further able to provide resources in collecting ante-mortem data; documenting field retrieval and morgue operations; and the processing and re-interment of disinterred remains. In order to quickly and accurately provide identification of the deceased victims, the teams have resources in the collection of medical records, dental records, and/or DNA of victims from the next of kin. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services supports the DMORT program through its office of Emergency Preparedness (OEP/NDMS). A warehouse is maintained in Gaithersburg, Maryland, which houses a disaster portable
In the 1980s, the National Funeral Directors Association (NFDA) recognized a need for an organized and trained group to be called upon to assist and lead the efforts in mass fatality incidents. The NFDA formed a committee to address disaster situations, specifically incidents that resulted in simultaneous multiple deaths. As a result, the association formed the Disaster Mortuary Operation Response Team (DMORT), a multi-faceted nonprofit organization to support the concept of a national-level response protocol for all related professions. DMORT, originally led by Tom Shepherdson, gained federal recognition in 1992 when it was incorporated into the federal disaster response system with the National Disaster Medical System. This incorporation resulted in the formation of federal regions throughout the country. Eventually, two specialty teams formed: The Weapons of Mass Destruction Team (WMD) and the Family Assistance Core Team (FAC-T) (LaDue, 2009). Today, DMORT is divided into 10 federal regions and is tasked through the federal government’s “Under Emergency Support Function #8.” The teams are composed of private citizens each with a particular field of expertise. The team members deploy when there is an MFI that requires their resources and services. The federal government compensates the members of the teams as temporary federal employees under the National Disaster Medical System (NDMS) and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Service (HHS). The NDMS works in conjunction with a regional coordinator in directing the teams (Blakeney, 2002). In the years immediately following the formation of DMORT, the focus was largely based upon identification and the release of deceased victims. With experience gained through MFIs, the scope and capabilities of DMORT have broadened and been refined. The teams are now capable of properly and accurately documenting the scenes. In addition to the recovery of victims and personal effects,
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Book Code: FNJ0524
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