Disgusting Allegations Flying about Mistreatment of Corpses in Escambia County....

According to the letters written to the BCC
about issues with the treatment of bodies in our
morgue lately--one 
might assume "Art the Clown" was in charge of 
handling the corpses locally.....But there is no proof
of these allegations, however, and
professional opinions vary among the local
funeral homes....

I must warn readers in advance on this one.  Don't eat before you read this.  And you won't want to eat after you read this.  My apologies, in advance, but here goes......

Everyone knows we are having issues coming up with a plan on how to modernize and adequately staff and size the D1 Medical Examiner's office (serving the four county area of Escambia, Santa Rosa, Okaloosa, and Walton Counties).  It's a topic that is out there.  The current facility is inadequate and undersized.  It is creating issues.  And it needs to be fixed.

The ME herself has been raising the flag on this for a while now.  I visited, I saw the issues.

And even as we on the Escambia BCC are working toward solutions to this vexxing issue--- one local morning radio host, Andrew "Tallman" McKay, ignorant of all of the  inside issues swirling around this topic (among many others) and much of the logic surrounding our cautious approach to finding the right solution to this particular matter, second guesses us and our practical approach to fixing the problem.  With a particularly vituperative, angry, personal attack on those of us (and me in particular) that simply disagree with him and know he is wrong.   But second-rate, low ratings, small market and substandard entertainment DJ's like Tallman do this: swipe, snipe, jab, assign blame, and attack---between radio ads for sandwich shops, used car dealers, and the latest weather and traffic blurbs--of course.  Then they move along to the next market... 

Yes, drive-by Tallman's opinion on where the ME's office should be located is wrong.

But I digress.

Now comes multiple local funeral homes making shocking, written allegations about the current Medical Examiner--allegations via correspondence to the county the full content of which I will not link here.  Why not?--because I'm not sure if they are founded, that is why. 

Meanwhile, I read the letters the county attorney sent to me and applied logic and reason to each one; therefore I am not printing or linking these full letters here. 

I read each letter then mentally juxtaposed what I was reading with the person who I have met and spoken with on multiple occasions-- Dr. Oleske.  And in short--I'm not necessarily sure I agree with or believe some of these claims.  Here's why.  Even though I may disagree with her approach to getting a new facility, even though I disagree with some of the plans put forward for such a new space--I DO NOT believe she would allow these things to occur on her watch.  I believe she is a professional.

Nevertheless--these complaints  have been forwarded by multiple funeral homes via written correspondence to the county--so they can't be ignored.

What are these funeral directors alleging in these letters? One Pensacola funeral home writes:

"human beings are being released to funeral homes with used golves, biohazardous materials, and trash stuffed into their cavities.  The body bags are torn and leaking fluids.  Autopsied bodies are in dire condition whe they leave her care, causing embalming and fuenral services to be a demanding feat.  In cases of accidental overdoses, or other fatal mistakes, Dr. Oleske will list the cause of death as suicide.  This understandably causes irreparable emotional damage to families.  Can you imagine your child, sibling or your friend, being listed as a suicide whey they simply made a mistake?  This is an example of the mental suffering our families experience.  Here is a real life example:  XXXXXXX lost his son to an accidental overdose in June 2022.  Dr. Oleske listed his son's cause of death as suicide.  Sitting with him in our foyer, we saw the weight and agony of this set in.  We kept him here at our funeral home as he denied, cried, and mourned for his son whom he though had purposely ended his own life.  XXXXX [dad] passed away this March, after spending three of his last nine months living believeing his son had murdered himself...."

Said a different funeral home about the current ME and her office:

"...the autopsies performed in this office i would almost equate with mutilation.  Most of the time the arteries and veins are so butchered that they leak when trying to embalm.  Every previous medical examiner woud tie off the major arteries and veins, so that they were easily visible among the surrounding tissues...I believe a Winn Dixie Butcher takes more pride and care in their work.."  this particular company's letter writer went on to claim "I personally picked up a deceased from the medical examiner's office and when the deceased was brought out to me, the person releasing to my care accidentally dropped the deceased's head on the table and said, 'oops, she didn't feel it'"

Yet another area funeral home wrote this:

"They are extremely slow in approving cremation permits and families get upset at the funeral home because of the Meical Examiner's incompetence...The deceased are often times not clean leaving the Medical Examiner's Office.  They are covered in bodily fluids that can simply be taken care of by running water over the deceased.  They leave trash inside the bags with the deceased which is absolutely disrespectful...in conclusion our Medical Examiner's office is the worst I've ever seen"

So, when I received this barrage of written complaints from these funeral homes via our attorney late this afternoon, I was naturally taken aback.  And I certainly do not want the public to think these complaints are tied to the county's disagreement with the Medical Examiner's office regarding a new facility.  These two items should not be conflated.

In an effort to get a sanity check--I spoke with someone I know who is in this business and intimately familiar with these processes.

"Jeff, I have not seen this issue, I haven't" he said.  We do a lot of work in this area and we just have not seen this.   Now, are there sometimes when a body has the veins cut and we don't know why?  yes.  Are there some bodies that come in and they are really torn up, yes. We saw a young child that had his intestines removed from the back which I have never seen before.  We see bodies with all intenstines pulled out, placed in bags, and put between the body's legs.  This is not uncommon.  But I'm not a doctor, so who am I to question why a body was cut up a certain way?  Sometimes I am sure there are reasons that make sense for these instances.  And I can tell you this--we sometimes get bodies from other medical examiners--and they are much worse than what we have seen from our local Medical Examiner.  We recently got two bodies back from New Orleans and they were in the worst shape we have seen in a long time."  He concluded "There is a state board that oversees the Medical Examiners and takes in complaints-so why are they sending these issues to you?  I asked this individual if he had seen anything  from our local ME that would compel him to make a complaint to the state to which he quickly and flatly said "No, I haven't"

So who knows how this thing got stirred up?

We might not ever know, but we will fix their space and staffing needs, that is being worked and will be fixed.