DVI unit set grisly task

By ALISON HORWOOD

A specialist disaster victim identification (DVI) team is assisting with the grim task of helping to identify New Zealand body parts in Bali morgues.

It is the first time since the Erebus and Cave Creek disasters that the unit has been used in a major capacity.

Using a strict five-step process in line with Australasian standards, the team uses fingerprinting, DNA techniques, and x-ray and dental records to establish the identity of a badly damaged body.

Senior Sergeant Gerard Prins, DVI co-ordinator for the New Zealand police, said the work aimed to establish identification to a standard that satisfied a coroner so that a body could be released for burial.

Visual identification was often not accepted, he said. "A family is often desperate to take something home, and with something like Bali you are looking at 150 bodies. You have to be very thorough with the identification process."

Mr Prins said that 200 search and rescue police around the country were trained in DVI. Apart from a major disaster such as the 1979 Air New Zealand crash on Mt Erebus in Antarctica, the team was used occasionally for serious multiple car accidents or plane crashes.

Mr Prins said the involvement in Bali so far had been in co-ordinating the paperwork of the first confirmed victim, Mark Parker, and sending it to Bali.

He said the process of DVI involved a post mortem which took note of any distinguishing jewellery, tattoos or historic broken bones. The next step was known as "ante-mortem", where data such as dental records and medical records were gathered from the victim's family.

If necessary DNA material would also be gathered from a victim's personal effects and his or her immediate family members.

ESR national client manager Peter Wilson said it was often "hit and miss" getting DNA from a badly burned body. It was sometimes possible to get deep muscle tissue or bone marrow which could be tested.


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