Finding answers for families

Editorial: Emily Wan

Photography: Scott McNaughton

Sifting through the personal effects of the victims killed in an aircraft crash in Papua New Guinea in 2009, Sergeant Trevor Blake recalls opening the final wallet he had to examine that day.

“I remember pulling out a child’s hand drawn picture that read ‘Come home soon Dad’,” Sgt Blake said.

“When the other police members who were around me saw it, I immediately noticed a lot of tears welling in their eyes.”

Having been a founding member of Victoria Police’s Chemical, Biological and Radiological and Disaster Victim Identification (CBR/DVI) Unit, which was established in 2003, attending multi-casualty disasters like this one, both in Australia and overseas, is part of the job.

In addition to the Papua New Guinea plane crash, Sgt Blake’s position has seen him attend the scenes of a helicopter crash at Mount Disappointment in Victoria that claimed the lives of five people earlier this year, the 2004 Thailand tsunami, the 2007 Kerang rail collision, and the Victorian bushfires that ravaged the state in 2009, claiming the lives of 173 people.

Recalling the 2009 Victorian bushfires, Sgt Blake said at the peak of the disaster there were 18 DVI teams working to identify victims across the affected areas.

“The magnitude of those fires was so big we were working from 7am to 11pm almost every day, with DVI-qualified police coming from across Australia and countries as far away as Indonesia to assist,” Sgt Blake said.

“Each of these teams comprised of a detective to make sure there was no criminal element involved in the death of located victims, which sadly needed to occur to make sure people weren’t taking advantage of the situation.”

The need for a specialised unit with CBR/DVI capabilities was identified following terrorist attacks in the United States in 2001 and Bali in 2002 to ensure Victoria Police was equipped should a similar mass fatality event ever happen on home soil.

So, swift action was taken to establish the CBR/DVI Unit, ensuring it was fully operational in time for the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games.

Interestingly, the organisation’s CBR/DVI Unit is the only one of its kind in Australia that has designated disaster victim identification, and chemical, biological, and radiological response trained members within the one unit.

Because of this, the team is often called upon to respond to any type of disaster happening in Victoria, Australia or around the world.

The highly-trained team is required to work with potentially deadly substances, aimed at causing maximum harm to the community, a skill that was a focus following a string of CBR-related attacks across the globe.

“In the early 2000s when anthrax attacks and threats were happening across the United States, there were copycat cases happening here too,” Sgt Blake said.

“That’s why we also provide a suspicious powder response using our detection equipment warfare detectors to deal with any chemical, biological or radiological release that may occur.”

Even with the unit’s wide-ranging capabilities, it’s the DVI capacity Sgt Blake says can make his job particularly challenging.

DVI is a four-phase method used to identify victims of human-created or natural mass casualty incidents.

There are globally-accepted standards for DVI protocols, produced by INTERPOL, which Sgt Blake said make it possible for the team to work interstate and globally.

“These shared protocols and the uniform approach to DVI are what allow us to travel interstate and internationally to help with DVI efforts after multi-casualty incidents where visual identification isn’t possible,” he said.

“By completing DVI, we can ensure all victims are treated with respect and dignity, because relying on visual identification alone can lead to a potential mine field.”

Sgt Blake points to a case in the United States in the early 2000s that highlights the importance of the DVI process.

“Two girls were involved in a car accident and both had severe facial injuries,” he said.

“Somehow, a responder at the scene picked up a driver license belonging to one of the people involved and put it into the wrong pocket of a deceased girl.

“The family of that girl was told she had died, and the family of the other girl was told that she was alive at hospital.

“So, this family go to the hospital, and for about four weeks they think the poor girl who is covered in head bandages is theirs, while the other girl is buried.

“It’s a tragic story, and one of many incidences across the world where people have been released on visual identification alone, and it has been incorrect.”

CBR/DVI team performs a scene examination.

Supplied

When an incident occurs, the DVI team is one of the first called to the scene and the process starts with scene examination that involves recovery of the deceased and their property.

With incidents like the plane crash in Papua New Guinea that required Sgt Blake to spend a week at the site, the type of incident, where it occurred, and the conditions at the site mean this can be a long process.

“At this time, human remains recovered were also given unique DVI numbers that we referred to during the identification process,” he said.

During the post-mortem in Port Moresby, specialists examined the human remains and recorded all the identifying features of the remains.

“They were looking at features unique to each person, such as their fingerprints, dental, DNA, and physical indications such as tattoos, scars or pacemaker with a serial number,” Sgt Blake said.

“By completing DVI we can ensure all victims are treated with respect and dignity, because relying on visual identification alone can lead to a potential mine field.”

DNA and fingerprint reference samples were also obtained from the victims’ homes in Australia and Papua New Guinea for the ante-mortem process.

During the final phase of the process, known as reconciliation, the post-mortem and antemortem samples collected from victims involved in the crash were compared.

“Matching data was then scrutinised by the experts to ensure a positive match,” Sgt Blake said.

The specialist DVI teams on location in Papua New Guinea were able to positively identify all the deceased from the plane crash and the victims were returned to their families.

The team has added a debrief to the process, which involves the CBR/DVI members talking about the job and asking, ‘This is what happened, and this is what our method was – can we do it better?’.

Sgt Blake’s unwavering dedication to the unit and its work, enhancement of Victoria's DVI capability, and commitment to the development of this specialist discipline saw him awarded an Australian Police Medal (APM) last year.

Although the nature of DVI work is rewarding, he said this is not the type of job that anyone can do.

“You never know how you're going to react when you actually see the aftermath of a multi-fatality incident,” Sgt Blake said.

According to Sgt Blake, what makes the job particularly challenging is when there is a link between yourself and the victim.

“I find the hardest part of the work is when I attend a scene, especially if there's children involved,” he said.

“We recover the body and then it goes to the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine for further examination.

“But two days later when you're in the privacy of your own home, having breakfast and you open up the newspaper and find a picture of the little girl who you pulled out of this disaster, you automatically start getting a connection with her, and then you start asking why this poor kid had to die in this way, and that's when it really starts to hit you hard.”

But Sgt Blake will keep doing this important job to ensure each person is treated with the respect and dignity that he would want for his own family, and to bring closure to victims’ families.

“If I can do this, then it’s a job well done, and that's what it's all about.”