After years of controversy, county christens new $18.4 million medical examiner's office

Following years of struggle and controversy, the county christened its new $18.4 million medical examiner's office last week.

The facility will help law enforcement investigations, boost tissue donations and provide other benefits, county officials said.

Volusia County's Chief Medical Examiner James Fulcher said the new medical examiner's office has allowed for the expansion of tissue donations in the county such as skin, long bones, corneas and heart valves.

The money to build it comes from the county's general fund.

The building at 3891 Tiger Bay Road near Daytona Beach has a separately accessible "tissue donor suite" for organizations to conduct tissue recovery at any time by using access cards. It's one of the benefits of the new facility officials touted at a recent ribbon cutting.

"They (the organizations) could not even function in our old building because of the spaces and the air conditioning. It was basically a non-starter," Fulcher said.

The medical examiner's office investigates deaths that aren't natural such as suspected homicides, suicides and accidents.

It has 16 employees, and the group moved into the building on Nov. 15. But Volusia County held a ribbon cutting on Friday and hosted tours of the facility.

Former medical examiner's office faced challenges

Volusia County's medical examiner's office lost accreditation in 2015 over insufficient storage space and staffing levels and the time it took to produce autopsy reports. Fulcher said the new building will allow the office to get accreditation from the National Association of Medical Examiners.

In 2018 Volusia County Medical Examiner Dr. Sara Zydowicz resigned and sent a letter to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement Medical Examiners Commission outlining concerns about the facility being understaffed, having a backlog of autopsies that hadn't been proofread and a morgue cooler that was "consistently over capacity."

Dr. Jon Thogmartin from Pinellas County helped the county eliminate its backlog before the county hired Fulcher in 2019, and county officials said Fulcher has continued to improve the office.

Fulcher told the Volusia County Council in 2021 that his office had reduced the average turnaround time for autopsies from over 100 days to an average of 22 days. But he said the autopsy area didn't have enough space.

Fulcher said he is grateful for the support of the council and other county officials in building the new facility.

"If you look at the news, you'll find medical examiner's offices that are floundering, that are failing, that have bodies stored in parking lots, that have a six-month wait for an autopsy report, that have a one-year wait for a complicated homicide. That's unacceptable," Fulcher said.

He said the average turnaround time for autopsies is now 17-20 days.

What do taxpayers get for the $18.4 million price tag?

The building offers upgraded technology and about 20,000 square feet ― the old building had about 6,800 square feet and was basically an office with a morgue tacked onto it, Fulcher said.

The old office had storage for about 30 bodies, and the new facility has capacity for over 100 bodies.

"They believe this building will sustain with population growth my needs for 20 years," he said, adding that he believes it will be 30 to 40 years before any "meaningful expansion" has to happen.

A tour of the building showed off some of the technology and the gleaming facilities.

The autopsy room is wired so people can watch from a nearby classroom, such as students and medical professionals. Law enforcement officers in training are among those who benefit, Fulcher said.

A Lodox digital X-ray machine "can capture comprehensive radiographic images for increased accuracy during investigations," according to the county.

Fulcher said it "takes a full-body X-ray in essentially 13 seconds."

"That same image quality really wasn't possible with our old equipment, and that same image even to get it kind of halfway similar would have taken my staff an hour and a half, maybe two hours," he said.

A loading and unloading area for large vehicles is enclosed. The design allows vehicles to come in and offload bodies without a drone or photographer capturing images of the body of a high-profile person.

The building also offers a bereavement area where families can go "and not have to see certain things and smell certain things when they go into a room," Volusia County Council Chairman Jeff Brower said.

"Think about it, how important that is for a family to be able to come (to and) have all the facilities they need to look at how their loved one died, why did they die?" Brower said.

Volusia County Manager Goerge Recktenwald said the facility will benefit the county for generations.

"This building, I think, is a tremendous leap forward in this particular area," he said.

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Medical examiner's office near Daytona Beach will help homicide cases