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| Number of bodies exceeds morgue's storage space |
| 2001-09-14 |
To ease overcrowding inside the morgue, canopies have been set up in the parking lot beside the entrance. Beneath them, scores of exhausted workers, clad in blue paper aprons, face masks and paper bonnets unload body bags from the trucks, placing them on stretchers for inspection. But trucks from the site have arrived at a slow trickle throughout the week. Finding bodies in the mountains of tangled rubble has proved difficult. Today, the city officially listed 4,700 people as missing; 184 casualties have been officially counted. "If there's jewelry or personal items, you separate it from the body. If there's a hand, you take finger prints," says New York Police Detective Barry Gorelick. Clothing, ID cards and other items are being put into numbered security envelopes to be given to victim's families after the bodies are identified. Medical examiners are focusing first on identifying victims through items found with remains, but soon the New York forensics lab will initiate a massive round of DNA testing. Family members have been asked to fill out forms identifying relatives who can provide DNA samples to be matched with tissue samples taken from remains. The job of identifying victims is complicated by the fact that some bodies arriving at the morgue are burned beyond recognition. And the vast majority of body bags contain only fragments. "It's nothing more than an arm here, a leg there," said one shaken police officer helping to unload trucks Thursday. (By Jane Spencer and Mary Carmichael NEWSWEEK) |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |