Examiner’s office praised

Like the phoenix, the Spokane County Medical Examiner’s Office has emerged from the ashes as a brand-new institution.

After enduring years of scandal, office personnel have quietly toiled to turn things around and have just been rewarded with national accreditation

The office is one of just two in the state and about 50 in the nation to hold the distinction.

The only other Washington medical examiner’s office to hold current accreditation with the National Association of Medical Examiners is in King County.

“I was very impressed with it, especially considering the size of the office and that they do the autopsies out of a hospital rather than their own office,” said inspector Dr. Gregory Schmunk, who works out of Modesto, Calif.

Schmunk graded the office on a 300-point checklist that covers issues as varied as protective equipment during autopsies, record-keeping and specimen storage.

The praise and recognition come after years of hard work by everyone in the office, said Dr. Sally Aiken, Spokane County medical examiner.

“I think we’re an A system. Before we started, I think we probably weren’t,” Aiken said.

The department has been plagued with problems over the years, first under the county’s last coroner, Dr. Dexter Amend, and then under the county’s first medical examiner, Dr. George Lindholm.

Amend was widely criticized for making insensitive comments to deceased people’s families. Tissue samples and other evidence was haphazardly stored during his tenure, Aiken said.

A Holy Family Hospital security guard was caught in 2000 stealing money and credit cards from the dead at the medical examiner’s property room at the hospital.

Then, in 2001, Lindholm admitted taking drugs prescribed to people brought to the morgue, after detectives found empty prescription bottles and medications in his trash and home.

Stealing from Spokane County’s dead would be much more difficult today, Aiken said. New procedures require death investigators to seal personal property in its owner’s body bag.

Only when the autopsy is conducted is a sealed tag on the bag broken, Aiken said.

“It was a novel solution that one of our investigators came up with,” she said.

Better record-keeping and sample storage were also achieved in pursuit of accreditation.

“For years and years and years the small tissues and items of evidence that we retained in autopsy had just been kept and kept, but there was no accounting of what we had, when we collected it or why,” Aiken said.

Some of the samples had to be discarded because improper storage had rendered them useless.

Today the office’s evidence database is one of the features highlighted in the National Association of Medical Examiners’ inspection report.

Accreditation gives the office the opportunity to pursue federal grants, Aiken said. It also gives the office greater respect, Spokane County Commissioner John Roskelley said.

“Any information and work that comes out of the medical examiner’s office has a certain distinction now as far as how well it’s done and what reliability law enforcement has in the office. In a court situation it’s a major step forward,” Roskelley said. He added, “Sally just turned the whole office around.”