Disaster Victim Identification: Experience and Practice

by Sue Black (Editor)

Disaster management has become an increasingly global issue, and victim identification is receiving greater attention. By raising awareness through past events and experiences, practitioners and policymakers can learn what works, what doesn’t work, and how to avoid future mistakes. Disaster Victim Identification: Experience and Practice presents a selection of key historical incidents in the United Kingdom and includes candid discussions of potential areas for improvement in preparedness and future deployment capabilities. Real disasters and lessons learned Each chapter in the book addresses a specific disaster and covers a number of main points in relation to the incident. For each event, the book presents data such as the manpower available at the time of the disaster, the number of officers involved in the deployment, and their relevant experience at the time. Details of the disaster follow, as well as the recovery and identification methods employed, the number of fatalities and casualties, and lessons learned. The book also explores the short- and long-term effects that the disaster had on the response team and the community. Finally, each chapter examines important present-day developments in relation to the event. The book summarizes important aspects of the particular disaster in terms of legislative, moral, practical, or other contribution to the field of mass disaster planning, preparation, and deployment on a wider scale. Global input Viewing disaster management from a global perspective, this volume contains the combined input of academics, forensic specialists, trainers, and law enforcement professionals who focus on actual cases to honestly assess events and provide recommendations for improvement.

272 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 2, 2010

About the author

Professor Dame Sue Black is one of the world's leading anatomists and forensic anthropologists. She is also the Pro-Vice Chancellor for Engagement at Lancaster University. She was the lead anthropologist for the British Forensic Team's work in the war crimes investigations in Kosovo and one of the first forensic scientists to travel to Thailand following the Indian Ocean tsunami to provide assistance in identifying the dead. Sue is a familiar face in the media, where documentaries have been filmed about her work, and she led the highly successful BBC 2 series History Cold Case.

Reviews

[Fox · Rating 4 out of 5]

Disaster Victim Identification: Experience and Practice dives into DVI practice in UK from the Aberfan colliery disaster in 1966 to 7/7 London bombings 2005. Each case is presented in its designated chapter and the DVI action is mostly described from the police point of view. This provides a great deal of information about the strategy and organising the DVI work, but less about the actual act of identification.

The timeline and events of each case is described, then organising the DVI actions and finally the writers reflect each case. These "lessons learned" parts are significant not only in their way of showing how DVI work has developed, but also in understanding that protocol development is part of each DVI case.

The writers hope that other countries would provide same kind of case book from their national cases and I strongly agree. That would offer a great database of DVI cases. Though I don't know if anyone really has done it.