Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, June 26, 1990                   TAG: 9006260423
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A7   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: W. PERRY BAILEY JR. and SYLVIA W. BAILEY
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

A SON'S DEATH/MORGUE ARTICLE WAS TOO GRAPHIC

Suddenly, our home was filled with emergency technicians, medical examiners, police officers and a myriad of other strangers. As we tenderly caressed our son's body, it was swept away from the protection of our home to be examined by a forensic pathologist to determine cause of death. This was neither a "suspicious nor violent death;" there were simply no apparent causes.

As the autopsy report showed no abnormalities whatsoever, we have spent months trying to accept the fact that a child can die in his sleep for no known reason. Dealing with his death has been extremely difficult, and we appreciated very much Mike Hudson's recent Roanoke Times & World-News series, "When a child dies."

Our healing wounds were torn open, however, as we read with horror Victoria Ratcliff's May 29-30 article, "No room at the morgue." We felt robbed of progress toward peace of mind as we envisioned our precious son's body carried into a crowded room among a mass of corpses and trash buckets filled with amputated body parts.

What was just another cadaver thrown in with the decompsosed bodies, maggots, ants, and other bugs was the remains of our loved one. The story depicted an assembly-line approach lacking even the dignity a butcher gives a slab of meat! Was our son's one of the bodies Dr. Massello had to "scramble to catch as it slipped off the antiquated embalming table"?

Not only do we have to deal with the recurring nightmares of the realism of an autopsy, but in reaction to this article we now must struggle with the doubt that our child's body was treated with respect.

Our suspicions that something might have been overlooked have resurfaced with this report of errors and mishaps.

Since our son's death occurred on a Monday morning, the examination undoubtedly added to the morticians' dreaded burden of the day's work load. Was the examiner so exhausted by the time he got around to Darrin's body that he failed to do a thorough evaluation? Perhaps our son's blood was that spilled in the parking lot; perhaps there were "critical toxicology" clues to his death in some other body fluid or tissue lost in the chaos.

While we sympathize with those who work under poor conditions and agree that there should be improvements made by the Buruea of Forensics, this information could have been presented more appropriately. We feel certain that this deplorable report was a source of revulsion and agony for many of your readers, and are appalled that your editors allowed what borders on tabloid sensationalism to appear in our hometown paper, let alone as a front-page story!

Even if such conditions exist at the morgue, we question the value in presenting them with such graphic atrocity. If the purpose of the article was to educate and solicit support, surely it could have been done in a tasteful, sensitive manner showing consideration for survivors of those on whom atuopsies have been necessary, whether to produce criminal evidence or otherwise.

Perhaps television has done us a favor in portraying the sterile morgue and laboratories used by "Quincy." We would have prefrred to live with the fantasty that our child's final handling was in such an environment.