...we don't have. We're in the single digits of unidentified [bodies]. I think I have one from my county.
Are the benefits you're talking about worth paying for?
It is, in my opinion. We are very fortunate that VeriChip was willing to donate this equipment to our region. But I highly suggest that anyone who has a large number of casualties use this technique. Number one, it will help with the tracking of that individual. You can assign information; you can actually build a database to hold any kind of information you want about that individual.
But I guess it would depend on the cost, if this were to become a commercial technology.
Right. I couldn't speak on the issue of cost. That was never an issue when they came into my community.
Was it hard to learn to use this technique?
It was very simple. Basically, it's like giving a shot. For anyone with any kind of medical knowledge, it would be very easy to use this.
What about decomposed bodies or body parts?
Well, decomposed bodies — you still have a body there even though it's decomposed. You still, you know, put the chip in the same as you would on a body that was not decomposed. As far as remains of individuals where there was no flesh, those chips were placed in a bag in an area at the top of what we would consider the head of the bag.
Did you encounter any objections to the use of this technology? I mean there are some people who might feel it's disrespectful to the dead.
I have not heard any negative input from them. I was told that there was an article by a group — I guess by some watchdogs — that were concerned about invasion of privacy. But this was not an invasion of privacy. It's a tool for us to be able to track the individual, so the individual doesn't get lost.
But it does seem to raise questions of inhumanity.
People who have lost their lives here, as well as those who were already buried and were washed out of their final resting place, those individuals were treated with the utmost respect. And one of the ways that we could respect them the most was to be able to get them back to their families and back to their final resting place with no interference from human error.
What's the read range of the chip?
It's not like a three- or four-foot range. I mean, you just run it over the back of the bag.
So, it's a few inches? It's not like once the person is buried you could go reading chips in graves?
No, not from above the ground.
I was curious how your relationship with VeriChip came about. Did they approach you?
VeriChip came to our community, contacted me and that's how the initial contact came. What they offered was to provide the equipment to us, to allow us to use the chip as an identifying mark to help track all of our victims that we were recovering. I told them I was very interested in using their product, and they offered to provide the equipment to us at no cost to our county, our community.
At what point did they come in?
They were in here within the first week (after Katrina hit), but I don't know the exact date.
From VeriChip's point of view, was this sort of a test case for this application of their technology?
Yeah, I haven't talked with them to see exactly why they came into the area. I do know that in talking to them, they were very anxious to offer the equipment for us to be able to do our job, if we felt that it was beneficial.
Have you been getting calls from other people, other coroners, who are interested in this technology?
Well, I know several of the people that were associated with DMORT that watched the technology being used and how we were using it. There was a discussion amongst a group of people about that.
Are you keeping the equipment, then?
The only thing that was really left over was the scanners that they provided. So, yes, those will be kept so that we'll be able to use them in the future. And we have a few of the chips left that you know we will continue to keep in event that we recover other victims.
