Disaster Victim Identification: Experience and Practice
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Features
- Examines disaster management from a global perspective
- Presents insights from academics, forensic specialists, trainers, and law enforcement personnel
- Covers a range of different events from train crashes to terrorist attacks to stadium disasters
- Offers honest assessments of events and provides recommendations for change
Summary
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.
Table of Contents
Introduction: The DVI Casebook, UK Incidents; Xanthé Mallett, Lucina Hackman, and Sue Black
The Aberfan Colliery Disaster, October 21, 1966; Mark Lynch and Sue Black
The Brighton Hotel Bombing, October 12, 1984; Andrew Buchan
Bradford City Football Stadium Fire, May 11, 1985; Thomas Walsh, Neal Rylatt, and Lucina Hackman
Manchester International Airport Fire: Flight KT28M, August 22, 1985; Suzanne Goodwin, David Wood, and Sue Black
King’s Cross Underground Fire, November 18, 1987; Nick Bracken and Sue Black
Piper Alpha Oil and Gas Platform Disaster, July 6, 1988; Derek Hiley and Sue Black
The Lockerbie Bombing, December 21, 1988; Graeme Galloway and Xanthé Mallett
The Hillsborough Football Stadium Disaster, April 15, 1989; David Barron and Xanthé Mallett
The Marchioness Riverboat Disaster, August 20, 1989; Graham Walker and Xanthé Mallett
The Dunblane Primary School Shootings, March 13, 1996; Neil Brown
The Omagh Bombing, Saturday, August 15, 1998; John Middlemiss
Rail Incidents; Graham Walker and Xanthé Mallett
Chinese Lorry Deaths, Dover, June 18, 2000; Steve Griffiths, Steve Corbishley, and David Weller
Operation Lund—Morecambe Bay Cockling Disaster, February 5, 2004; Steve Brunskill and Xanthé Mallett
London Bus and Underground Bombings, July 7, 2005; Graham Walker and Xanthé Mallett
Close
Index
Author Bio(s)
S. Lucina Hackman
is the national disaster victim identification program coordinator for the advanced training program based in Centre for Anatomy and Human Identification (CAHID), University of Dundee. She is involved in teaching at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels as well as supervising research projects. She is studying for a PhD, under the supervision of Professor Sue Black, investigating the identification of age in living individuals as applied to asylum applications and those seeking refugee statusXanthé Mallett
is lecturer in the Centre for Anatomy & Human Identification. Dr. Mallett was part of a team that traveled to Brazil to teach best practice in human skeletal identification and has coauthored a considerable number of forensic reports for UK police forces. In her professional capacity as a forensic anthropologist she undertakes casework, research, and teaches techniques in human identification at both the undergraduate and postgraduate level. Her area of expertise is in the comparison of hand images, commonly applied to forensic cases involving digital images. She was involved in the disaster victim identification training and is a council member and membership secretary for the British Association for Human Identification.
