Outage impairs forensic functions
New facility needed, says medical examiner
By Chris Conley
Memphis Commercial Appeal
December 6, 2006
Dr. Karen Chancellor was fuming Tuesday as daylong power outages at the Regional Forensic Center interrupted and delayed autopsies she and her staff were performing.
"We were without electricity for a large part of the day. ... We hope it will be back by tomorrow," said Chancellor, Shelby County's chief medical examiner. "We're still having alarms going off."
The outage, which began around 10 a.m., was largely resolved by late afternoon, although lights were still flickering and phones and computers crashing. Backup generators for the building at 1060 Madison were only partly effective.
The outage was caused by a failure in an underground cable that serves the forensic center and four other buildings in the Medical Center area of Madison and Pauline, MLGW spokesman Chris Stanley said.
The cable was replaced by late afternoon.
The forensic center would likely continue to experience "power blinks" for a short time after the repairs, he said.
Chancellor said the electrical problems underlined the dire need for new digs. "This is totally inadequate," she said. "We desperately need a new facility."
And though autopsies were performed Tuesday, they took longer than normal.
Chief among Chancellor's concerns was the failure of the exhaust system that removes infectious airborne matter from the building. Though medical examiners wear protective gear, "the exhaust is very important," she said.
"An autopsy has risks for those performing it," she said, since examiners are exposed to blood and airborne dangers.
The state has agreed to fund construction of a new regional forensic center for about $10 million, to be leased to Shelby County. The hang up is over where to put the building.
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