法医学司法管辖区必须为大规模死亡事件的发生做好准备。尽管有计划灾难性和复杂事件的趋势,这项对近期大规模死亡事件的分析旨在更好地告知当局可能影响其管辖范围的事件的规模和类型。本研究提供的指导作为指导制定计划的工具,获取适当的资源,和员工培训。要执行此分析,数据收集自2000年1月1日至2016年12月31日在美国发生的导致10人或更多人死亡的大规模死亡事件.收集了每个事件的具体数据点,包括日期,location,死亡人数,事件类型(例如,人造或自然),事件子类型,和描述(例如,大规模射击,飓风,航空)。共有137起事件符合纳入分析的标准,共造成8462人死亡。在研究期间,平均每年发生8起事件。分析表明,大多数大规模死亡事件(88.8%)导致10至50人死亡,并且根据事件类型和地理位置而变化。这项研究包括几个大规模的事件,作为异常值影响了国家层面的死亡管理业务和准备工作。特别是,2001年9月11日的世界贸易中心袭击以及随后的遗体恢复和身份识别操作已将管理综合大楼所需的能力告知纽约市首席医学检查官办公室,长期的受害者识别过程涉及广泛的身体分裂和混合。虽然世界贸易中心袭击事件已被证明超出了大规模死亡事件的正常趋势,尽管如此,它还是为法警社区提供了一些宝贵的教训。
It is imperative that medicolegal jurisdictions prepare for the occurrence of a mass fatality incident. Despite the trend to plan for catastrophic and complicated incidents, this analysis of recent mass fatality events seeks to better inform authorities regarding the scale and types of incidents that could potentially impact their jurisdiction. The guidance provided by this study serves as a tool to guide the development of plans, acquisition of appropriate resources, and training of staff. To perform this analysis, data were collected from mass fatality incidents occurring in the United States from January 1, 2000 to December 31, 2016 that resulted in ten or more fatalities. Specific data points were collected for each incident including the date, location, number of fatalities, incident type (e.g., man-made or natural), incident subtype, and description (e.g., mass shooting, hurricane, aviation). A total of 137 incidents fit the criteria for inclusion in the analysis, resulting in a total of 8462 fatalities. The average number of incidents was eight per year during the study period. The analysis demonstrates that most mass fatality incidents (88.8%) result in between ten and 50 fatalities and are variable based on incident type and geographic location. This study includes several large-scale incidents, which as outliers have influenced fatality management operations and preparedness efforts on a national level. In particular, the World Trade Center attack of September 11, 2001 and subsequent remains recovery and identification operations have served to inform the New York City Office of Chief Medical Examiner of the capabilities required to manage a complex, protracted victim identification process involving extensive body fragmentation and commingling. While the World Trade Center attack has been shown to be outside the normal trends of mass fatality incidents, it has nonetheless offered the medicolegal community several invaluable lessons.