Identifying victims after an attack

[Lucked]

There are more stories coming through about the frustration of families with missing relatives some of whom know they were caught up in the terror attacks who cannot confirm if they are amongst he dead. The Spanish foreign minister has also criticised the British authorities.

There is a quote in the DM which I won't link to which says

^Formal identification has to be done to a certain evidence standard and there are few types of formal evidence that are acceptable to a coroner.

'That process of identification will be happening throughout the course of this afternoon and into tomorrow.

'But that does not mean we have not identified the victims.'^

So they are admitting they know but families are phoning phones and checking hospitals and desperately holding out hope. I understand that in some incidents identification is very very difficult due to the injuries but the delay in these cases appears to be awaiting DNA and dental records. I don't think families and the coroners need the same standard; the police say they know.

Also when that formal identification has been completed there appears to be a further delay, the McMullen family were informed they could not told until after the report had gone to the coroner but if the standard is so high why wait any longer than the test result?

This seems so cruel but I think I will be in the minority on this.

I'm now wondering will my post above disappear too!!!

"So they are admitting they know but families are phoning phones and checking hospitals and desperately holding out hope."

That's not really a fair inference. For example, one family of a visitor from abroad flew in yesterday and they will be seeing a specific person. It's not the case that families are being kept un-informed or in any form of limbo.

And the Mail should know better.

"The girlfriend of missing Sebastian Belanger has been repeating that her posts for info are removed."

That might be at the request of his family. They are the ones mentioned by pp who arrived yesterday. Unfortunately it seems he numbers amongst the dead and there will be an announcement idc

Crikey Thistle - that's a bit of a leap! I don't suppose initial reports about a 12 year old girl could just have been wrong?

In all the chaos it just takes one person to give or mishear information and it spreads even though it's wrong.

DNA test results don't come back within hours, as shown on TV.

I know someone who has some expertise in this area. She says DNA testing has to be handled very carefully because it's surprising how often it's found that, for example, a father's DNA doesn't match with a son or daughter, not because it isn't the right person, but because he isn't actually the biological father.

The authorities don't want to uncover family secrets, and they do routinely try to collect samples for testing from both sides of the family, but this is one of the factors that complicates things.

As well as dead (and possibly missing in river) remember they have 48 people in hospital, many of whom may also be unconscious, maimed, without id.

I know someone whose boyfriend created havoc because he told her he was flying home to the U.S on what turned out to be the Lockerbie flight, he had her drop him off at the airport and everything. In fact what he did was hop on the tube and go off for a holiday with OW. By the time he surfaced and realised, his gf had informed his work, who had spoken to his family....

Armchair forensics, conspiracy theorists and the DM need to pipe down.

So does this happen with all victims now including car crashes?

Does what happen?

Formal identification is required. What form that takes, and how long it takes will depend on the circumstances.

Do the police wait for DNA or dental records before informing family after 'normal' accidental deaths such as a motorway accidents or are the procedures different under these circumstances?

The link above is about a car crash in America with one fatality and one seriously injured victim. It is not unusual to get more than that number of casualties after a serious motorway accident.

If after the GE on Thursday, it comes out that the news was buried/suppressed, we'll know TM and the Tories didn't want this to derail their campaign

I doubt that this is the case - the campaign had already been derailed by the dementia tax and TM not appearing on tv interviews.

I meant to add - yes, the wait for a formal ID is awful, and cruel. But that cruelty is not being inflicted by any agency through conspiracy, neglect, or incompetence - it's just the way things are.

In time I found it oddly comforting that the police were so thorough and careful about confirming the identity of my loved one - so much care went into getting it right. Yes the wait was hell but that was definitely not the fault of anyone other than the person responsible for their death.

Do you really think they'd delay identification just to be cruel?!

Yabu. It's a very, very difficult process.

As for the conspiracy theory.. don't be ridiculous

The thing with this as well is that there are lots of people "waiting for information".

They may not be the people who will be given the information. When a local man went missing his niece was on FB constantly for weeks. Even after the police found his body she banged on about "not being given information". However, his daughter was given information and, rightly, the police allowed her to deal with the information in the way she saw fit and that included not passing it onto his niece until she was ready to have it all over FB.

The police can't just tell whoever phones the hospital that someone is dead. The have to work out who is the person they should be speaking too and then speak to that person.

Sometimes that puts a girlfriend or boyfriend in the position whereby they feel like they should be the one getting the information and asking the questions, but they're not.

Also in the case of a car crash etc you can often have someone identify the body because it's fairly cut and dried who is involved. When you have two or three people of the same age, killed in the same area, without their ID (as bags/purses etc are scattered) then you can't just have families identify body after body until they find the right one, and that's before you add in disfiguiring injuries.

It's horrible but the authorities do their utmost to give a definite answer as soon as possible. They would be absolutely crucified in the media if they wrongly told someone that their relative had been killed when they hadn't.

You have to remember too that without a fairly intact body it is very difficult to prove beyond reasonable doubt that a person is dead - at least quickly. In the Shoreham air disaster a couple of years ago the police couldn't even confirm the number of victims for several days. (An ex-colleague was a volunteer fireman at the scene, he said that in that incident it was impossible to count the number of victims because they had quite literally been disintegrated by the impact and subsequent inferno.)

This is not to say that families of potential victims do not deserve a better service, a more sympathetic and less frustrating service - they do. But the only people to blame for the delays are the perpetrators of the act itself.

I asked a similar question after the last attack but ended up offending loads of posters (unintentionally) - you've explained it far better than I did

YANBU actually OP. No, I don't think the authorities are doing their outmost. I think this has been handled badly and unsensitively. Perhaps understandably given the circumstances of overstretched public services - but let's not pretend there is no room for improvement.

My sister lives in Spain and she tells me that the family of the missing Spanish guy have now confirmed that he died during the attack - ie no official confirmation. Up until now he was considered missing. However he was one of the "original" 7 bodies. Apparently Spanish media is rife with hints that he might have been killed by friendly fire due to the way he looked, and that this is deliberately being kept quiet until after the election.

Getting communication wrong not only causes unnecessary suffering, it can also lead to this sort of conspiracy theories.

YANBU actually OP. No, I don't think the authorities are doing their outmost. I think this has been handled badly and unsensitively.

What do you think could or should have been done differently?

"One fatality has not been formally identified but Mr X's family has been contacted".

For example. Showing a bit of compassion.

"One fatality has not been formally identified but Mr X's family has been contacted".

Why does anyone else need to know that Mr X's family has been contacted? What compassion is being shown, and to whom, by making a public announcement like that?

My sister lives in Spain and she tells me that the family of the missing Spanish guy have now confirmed that he died during the attack - ie no official confirmation. Up until now he was considered missing. However he was one of the "original" 7 bodies.

Up to yesterday evening, they had one body, but two men were missing, the Spanish man and a Frenchman; presumably they were not able to say definitely which of the two missing men it was.

We don't actually know what has and hasn't happened.

The Spanish media 'rife' with speculation gives me no more confidence than the made up crap that gets spouted here.

It's all so intrusive. Wanting to know, expecting every family to want their loved one made public, the assumption that everyone gets treated like a next of kin and will put it in Facebook. The Helplines with lists of THOUSANDS reported missing....only to turn out to be at a boy/girlfriends house, oblivious. There was one such case on MN.

So suppose friends and relatives of 11 or 12 young men all answering broadly the same description all rung in. Maybe 2 or 3 sets of friends per missing person, even. 3 days later most have been located, miles away, maybe the relieved relatives don't tell the police...they still have THOUSANDS of people who rang in.,, to call back, to identify as the real relatives of the dead. Not easy. A body with no id, a list of thousands.

People having to have it explained to them what the effects in terms of id might be if they have been blown to bits, or stabbed in the face (LOTS of reports that that is what the terrorists did) or had their head run over. I don't know. It's bloody easy to be an expert when you know nothing.

"Why does anyone else need to know that Mr X's family has been contacted? What compassion is being shown, and to whom, by making a public announcement like that?"

Exactly.

The uncertainty must be horrific for the affected families.

However getting it wrong would be so awful on so many levels also.

And none of this is any of our business if we are lucky enough not be waiting to hear from a loved one.

As a PP said, a girlfriend is not a NOK. They can rant and rave all over FB all they like but they aren't privy to that information. Maybe the family requested the posts were taken down? Maybe because they do know the outcome.

The problem is that Mr X's family has only been contacted today. Almost 3 days after the event.

Do you people actually think that those involved in identifying the bodies aren't doing their absolute best?