When large-scale natural or man-made disasters occur in the United States, such as Hurricane Helene or the recent Washington, D.C. plane crash, a Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Team (DMORT) may be deployed at the request of the local medical examiner's office to help identify deceased individuals and store the bodies until they are claimed. DMORT has never deployed in cold weather, so to ensure its processes would function well in that environment, it held its first full cold-weather training exercise at Northern Michigan University last week, shortly after the blizzard. Organizers gave NMU high marks for the professionalism of students from various disciplines who participated, and for help facilitating the setup a disaster portable morgue unit in a Jacobetti Complex parking lot.
The exercise involved DMORT Region 5, , which covers Michigan, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin and Minnesota.
“Overall, it was a big success,” said NMU Center for Forensic Science Director Jane Harris. “DMORT achieved its objectives of determining whether equipment would work in the cold, whether the tent temperature was appropriate for working conditions, and if other operations would function smoothly in such an environment. It was a big deal for them because now they can send their recommendations for future deployments up their chain of command.”
Harris was approached about Northern serving as the host site based largely on its northern location and its donor program, which enabled the Center for Forensic Science to provide the donor remains used for the exercise. She said dummies are often used for training, or if they use real human remains, they are typically those of embalmed medical school donors. In this case, DMORT requested permission to train using real, unembalmed human remains from the NMU Body Donation Program. Her condition up front was that if DMORT wanted to come to Northern and utilize these resources, they must also allow student involvement in the exercise.
“There were 30 NMU students and nine UW-Platteville students,” Harris said. “I assigned them the role of trackers. They worked in pairs and their responsibility was to be the stewards of the donor remains that would be moving through the temporary morgue. I wanted to make sure they maintained the chain of custody, and I wanted to ensure that someone was right there to speak on behalf of the donors if anything happened to them that I had not permitted.”
Each donor “remain” passed through eight stations: Admission, Pathology, Photography/Personal Effects, Fingerprinting, Anthropology, DNA, Dental, and X-Ray before exiting the disaster portable morgue unit. NMU student trackers were exposed to most—if not all—of these areas. Station chiefs explained what would happen during an actual deployment and, In many cases, directly involved the students in conversations about the remains and encouraged them to be “hands-on” with their respective procedures. Student trackers actively took photographs, collected DNA samples, conducted skeletal and dental analyses, described their observations to the pathologist, and took X-rays under the guidance of the DMORT station chiefs.
Senior forensic biochemistry major Emma Gariepy said she had no idea what DMORT was going into the training, but left with an appreciation for its important mission. She said the experience enlightened her about the many different career paths represented in DMORT that contribute to the same overall goal.
“All of the professionals involved in the training were so welcoming to us as students, and encouraged us to participate in the various stations in the temporary morgue,” Gariepy said. “They explained to us what they were doing and why they were doing it. It was very cool to see how some of the things that I have learned at NMU were applied in the mission of the DMORT training. I was also able to witness some things that I have never seen before, like a full postmortem dental exam, which was very interesting.”
As a graduate student at Northern studying biological anthropology and its role in forensic investigations, Megan Carol has had the opportunity to volunteer to help with law enforcement trainings that cover a variety of topics surrounding death investigations. She said the ability to participate in the DMORT cold-weather deployment exercise allowed her to see how professionals from different aspects of the postmortem investigation work together when responding to a disaster, and the hands-on approach enabled her to apply what she has learned to a real-life scenario.
“Attending stations outside of my interest in anthropology allowed me to make connections of how photography, pathology, radiography, fingerprinting, anthropology, DNA, and dentition work together when one or more fields are unable to do their job based on what condition the remains are in,” she added. “Working with professionals in the medicolegal community also allowed me to ask questions about the difference in protocols between forensic work and disaster management. This was beneficial because I am passionate about ensuring that we do everything we can to make sure everyone is laid to rest with their identification. Through the mission of organizations like DMORT and MI-MORT, professionals within the medicolegal and the death service industry come together to ensure those who have lost their life in a disaster are identified and returned to their families. “
Harris said students had never been involved in DMORT exercises before, but based on their professionalism, positive interactions with professionals, and interest in the process expressed through thoughtful questions, it is likely to happen again. DMORT officials said they would recommend to their higher-ups that student participation be a component of all exercises moving forward.
“At the debrief on Sunday morning, the Exercise Commander, David Hunt, had the students go one by one and share their thoughts on the exercise,” Harris added. “That put them on the same level as the DMORT team members who were reflecting on how the exercise went. We heard repeatedly that it was so great to have the students there. The DMORT folks talked about how they're aging out of this at some point, and not many people know what they do, but having our students see it first-hand and become inspired by the work made them excited for the future.”
DMORT officials repeatedly told Harris it would not have been possible to pull off the exercise so soon after last Wednesday's blizzard without the infrastructure that Northern has in place. They were on a tight timeline to get the interconnected tents set up for the disaster portable morgue unit on Thursday, so NMU Police Chief Mike Bath showed up very early that morning to assess the situation and offer assistance. The NMU grounds crews quickly and efficiently plowed nearly two feet of snow from the parking lot, but it turned into a “skating rink” with the ice beneath.
“Then Mike called in a salt truck that made enough passes to get it down to bare concrete, and the crews assisting DMORT (MI-MORT, MI-TESA) were able to set up the tents with no problems,” Harris said. “So they learned that if they deploy in cold weather, they can't just set up in the parking lot of an abandoned mall or something like that; they would have to do it in in concert with an entity that had resources similar what Northern was able to provide. DMORT was unbelievably appreciative of our grounds team and Mike for making it physically possible to pull it off.”
The 30 NMU students who participated ranged from freshmen to graduate students. The undergraduate student breakdown of numbers and majors was: one biology pre-dental; six biology pre-med; two biology; one clinical lab sciences (CLS) who works in the Upper Michigan Brain Tumor Center; six from CLS radiography; and 10 from anthropology. There were also four graduate students, two in the integrated biosciences master's program and two in the master of interdisciplinary studies program, primarily focusing on anthropology.
