Latest news with #morgue
The Sun
15-07-2025
- Health
- The Sun
Sick crimes of morgue rapist David Fuller ‘could be REPEATED unless bodies are better cared for'
THE sickening crimes of morgue rapist David Fuller could be repeated unless bodies are better cared for, an inquiry has warned. Fuller, 68, was jailed for life in 2021 for sexually assaulting 101 female corpses while working as a maintenance engineer at NHS hospitals. The inquiry has already ruled better management and security could have prevented his crimes at Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust in Kent. Now it has concluded regulation of the care of people after death is 'partial, ineffective and, in significant areas, completely absent'. Chairman Sir Jonathan Michael said: 'I have come to the conclusion that the current arrangements for the regulation and oversight of the care of people after death are partial, ineffective and, in significant areas, completely absent. 'I have concluded that it is entirely possible that such offences could be repeated, particularly in those sectors that lack any form of statutory regulation.' More than half a million British people die every year, with 568,613 in England and Wales in 2024. Sir Jonathan added he was concerned there are no industry standards for caring for dead people, and that anyone could become a funeral director without any qualifications. He said there is a 'cultural reluctance' to accept bodies can be abused. He went on: 'I am not confident arrangements currently in place satisfactorily protect the deceased from the risk of abuse.' 'I urge all those involved in the care of people after death to question whether they uphold the same standards as they would if that person were alive. 'The deceased are as vulnerable as the living and they are worthy of the same protection. 'The harm inflicted on David Fuller's victims and the hurt and trauma experienced by their families must never be repeated.' MORGUE monster David Fuller was free to assault dead women for 15 years due to 'serious failings' at the hospitals where he worked, a report found. The double killer abused at least 101 women while working at mortuaries in Tunbridge Wells Hospital and at the former Kent and Sussex Hospital. A probe found there were "missed opportunities" to stop the necrophiliac's 15-year rampage. His youngest victim was a nine-year-old girl and the oldest was 100 years old, with Fuller sometimes violating the bodies more than once. Inquiry chairman Sir Jonathan Michael said: "Failures of management, of governance, of regulation, failure to follow standard policies and procedures, together with a persistent lack of curiosity, all contributed to the creation of the environment in which he was able to offend, and to do so for 15 years without ever being suspected or caught. "Over the years, there were missed opportunities to question Fuller's working practices. "Had his colleagues, managers and senior leaders been more curious, it is likely that he would have had less opportunity to offend."
CBS News
03-07-2025
- CBS News
Philly says DC 33 strike is crowding the morgue as it seeks injunction to get medical examiner's employees back
Breaking down the verdict in the Diddy trial | Digital Brief Breaking down the verdict in the Diddy trial | Digital Brief Breaking down the verdict in the Diddy trial | Digital Brief Cooled storage for dead bodies is getting crowded, and there is a "backlog" of cadavers that need to be examined in Philadelphia's morgue amid an ongoing labor strike, attorneys for the city said in a court filing Thursday. As the AFSCME DC 33 strike continues in its third day, the city filed documents in the county Court of Common Pleas seeking an injunction to compel 31 union members in the Medical Examiner's Office to return to work. The strike began at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday, and soon after, every employee on the clock at the 24/7 office walked off the job, according to the city's court filing, which includes statements from Chief Medical Examiner Lindsay Simon. The members on strike include medicological death investigators, forensic technicians, and investigators, as well as clerical and service staff. Since the strike, the cold storage in the office has been filling up with bodies, numbering 180 as of the morning of July 1. "The MEO is currently operating over capacity with two bodies per bed," Simon wrote. Simon added that in ideal conditions, the storage should contain no more than 160 bodies. Not having the DC 33 employees working also means death investigations are delayed, which could increase the backlog further. This could also jeopardize the prompt transportation and refrigeration of bodies to the refrigerated storage areas, the document states. "If MEO is unable to properly attend to the sudden, unexpected, and/or suspicious deaths within Philadelphia, there will be numerous dead bodies sitting in homes and on street corners without staff to transport them to the refrigerated morgue storage areas," the document reads. They also note that dead bodies contain high volumes of bacteria and potentially live viruses, can attract insects and rodents that also carry viruses and bacteria, and pose a public health hazard when not properly handled. DC 33 President Greg Boulware told CBS News Philadelphia the injunction is proof that the union's workers provide the most important functions of a city, and that the situation could be resolved by paying the workers an adequate wage. He urged the city to come back to the negotiating table and offer a fair wage to the union members. Judges have sided with the city in previous injunction requests during this week's strike. After just one day, 911 dispatchers were ordered back to work as their services were deemed critical to the city's safety. About 70 Philadelphia Water Department employees were also ordered to return to work via injunction. And a judge also granted an injunction compelling the union to stop picketing that was deemed disruptive to services. contributed to this report.
Telegraph
14-06-2025
- Telegraph
Air India dead strewn across filthy Indian morgue
Bodies of the Air India crash passengers and crew have been left strewn uncovered across a chaotic and dirty morgue, footage appears to show. A video obtained by relatives and seen by The Telegraph appears to show charred and torn victims of the Flight AI171 disaster lying across the floor in a filthy pink walled room at the Civil Hospital in Ahmedabad. In the graphic footage, which The Telegraph is not publishing, limbs can be seen on a tiled floor next to barred windows and burnt bodies uncovered among dirty sheets. Three days on, families are still trying to identify victims of the crash. Relatives of the deceased told The Telegraph that less than 40 of the more than 270 total dead had been confirmed so far through DNA testing. As investigators try to find the cause, relatives of the 53 British people who died are scrambling to reach the western Indian city and identify their loved ones before repatriating them to the UK. Among those looking for closure was Abdullah Nanabawa, the father of Akeel Nanabawa, who died alongside his wife, Hannaa Vorajee, and their four-year-old daughter, Sara. Mr Nanabawa, who grew up in Newport, South Wales, was returning to his home in Gloucestershire with his wife and child. His father has now been provided with the horrific footage of inside the morgue and said he was asking to see his son's body. 'This is the situation inside,' he told The Telegraph. 'They won't let me inside the mortuary. I'm his father. It's my right to see him, no matter how broken, how burned. I have to face this. I should have died instead, he was taken away.' As he smoked a cigarette every 10 minutes and walked around in slippers outside the Civil Hospital, waiting for answers, he added: 'Release the bodies of my relatives. This is unfair.' None of the British relatives flying in from the UK appear to have reached the hospital yet. Indian relatives of British crash victims, some of whom drove through the night for up to 12 hours, told The Telegraph that they have been left waiting outside the hospital for days in unbearable heat, 'begging' for answers. Hannaa Vorajee's cousin, Ameen Siddiqui, 28, from Surat in Gujarat, said their home had been 'alive with laughter' this Eid, reunited with their British relatives. 'We're invisible' 'None of us imagined it would be our last Eid together or that the next time we'd gather, it would be to wait outside a hospital, begging for answers,' he said. 'We've been coming to the hospital every day since the crash, morning till midnight, and no one tells us anything. It's as if we're invisible. They won't even confirm if their bodies are inside,' he said. Officials, he said, 'keep repeating, 'Wait 72 hours'.' 'Seventy-two hours for what? We're not even allowed past the gate. Even the people at the helpline don't answer our queries. There is a wall of silence while our dead lie inside, unacknowledged. 'The worst pain is not just that we lost them, but that we can't even see them, can't say goodbye, can't know. For three nights, we've stood here in the heat, the dust,' he said. On Saturday evening the first British relatives are expected to begin arriving after finally securing visas and flights. However, Indian family members say they don't know how to prepare them for the horror and uncertainty that awaits. Mr Siddiqui told The Telegraph: 'My aunt Yasmin, Hanna's mother, and her son Muhammad are flying in from London today [Saturday]. What will we say to them? That we don't even know if their bodies still exist? That their granddaughter may never be buried properly? We feel abandoned.' Imtiyaz Ali Syed, 42, whose brother Javed, 37, died with his wife Mariam and their children Zayn, six, and Amani, four, has been at the hospital since 2am on Friday, having driven through the night when news broke. The family, who live in west London, had been in India on a long-awaited Eid holiday to spend time with Javed's ailing mother. Javed was a hotel manager, Mariam worked as a brand ambassador at Harrods. 'This was Javed's second visit home in over a decade,' Mr Syed said. 'He had worked hard in London all these years and finally planned this trip just to be with the family, to celebrate Eid together like old times. We hadn't had a full family gathering in years.' Mr Syed said he 'could not gather the courage' to enter the mortuary. 'They said the bodies were burnt beyond recognition. What would I see? What could I possibly recognise? That image would stay with me forever. I couldn't bear it. No one can imagine our pain. 'We saw them off happily, then they were killed and we won't get closure. People die and families at least find closure by burying their bodies with a face. We can't see their faces anymore.' 'We've lost everything in a moment, because of someone else's negligence,' he said. 'My nephew Zain was six, my niece Amani just four. We don't even know if their bodies remain. How can a family process grief when there's not even a face left to say goodbye to?' On Friday The Telegraph reported that Mariam's older sister, Sadaf Javed, 48, was desperate to travel from her home in west London to Ahmedabad. Today her sister-in-law, Yasmine Hassan, from west London, confirmed that Mrs Javed had finally obtained a visa and is now on standby for flights. 'This is her baby sister, her husband, and her sister's two children,' Mrs Hassan said. 'Those two children see her like a second mum. She just wants to be there.' Investigators are continuing to search the crash site in the Meghaninagar district 1.5km metres from the end of the runway at Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport. The Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner headed for London Gatwick crashed into a hostel where medical students and their families were living just 30 seconds after take-off. India has ordered urgent safety tests of Boeing 787s and the flight data recorder, known as the black box, had been recovered and was being looked into by investigators. Only one of the 241 people on board survived the crash, the sole surviving passenger, Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, from Leicester, who was sitting in seat 11A.
Sky News
13-06-2025
- General
- Sky News
Air India plane crash: Families in Ahmedabad endure agonising wait for victims' bodies
Families just want the bodies of their loved ones. They have gathered in the scorching summer heat outside the morgue in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, and crane their necks to get a glimpse of the next stretcher carrying a body bag to a waiting ambulance. The process for identifying bodies after the Air India plane crash is painstaking and some have been burnt beyond recognition. All but one of the 242 people on board the Boeing 787 Dreamliner died. 0:56 DNA samples are being matched with relatives, but patience is running thin. The wait for Lila Behan is agonising. She wails and cries, longing to see her grandson Akash one last time. She tells Sky News that he was outside when the aircraft crashed into their quarters. There was fire all around, her daughter-in-law Sita ran towards the flames and got severely burned. She's fighting for her life in the hospital's intensive care unit. "I can't even see my child's face now, they said he's so severely burnt. But I just want to see him for one last time," she says. Anand Thanki lost three members of his extended family, including an infant. All were British nationals from Wellingborough, Northamptonshire. His sister-in-law Raxa had travelled to India with her daughter-in-law Yasha and infant grandson Rudra for a religious ceremony. Raxa lost her husband to cancer two months ago and this was a ritual she needed to perform. Anand tells Sky News: "It's a big loss, but what can we do? We can only blame our fate, it's probably written for us. "Worst was for my nephew who had dropped them at the airport, returned home and heard the news of the incident." India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi has visited the crash site and assessed the situation. He knows the city well, it's personal for him. He has been a legislator for over a decade and previously served as the chief minister of the state of Gujarat. At the crash site, he walked around debris and the block of flats which were in the flight path of the plane. The aircraft began losing altitude and within minutes of take-off, it plummeted to the ground, erupting in a fireball. At the hospital, Mr Modi met Vishwash Kumar Ramesh - the only person to escape the aircraft. He spoke of his miraculous escape. 0:58 The scale of the tragedy has been compounded by its location. The plane came down right in the heart of a built-up neighbourhood, with the front of the aircraft crashing into residential quarters for medical students. The wheels and tail of the plane are embedded in the top floor of one of the buildings, where many had gathered for lunch in a dining hall. Plates are still on tables - evidence that residents were eating when the aircraft tore through. There were at least 23 victims on the ground, including students, doctors and family members. Some are in a critical condition. 2:00 The cause of the crash remains unknown. Investigators will now begin the long and complex process of establishing what went wrong. But many families will grapple with the unimaginable loss after one of the worst disasters in India's aviation history.
News.com.au
29-05-2025
- Health
- News.com.au
Time is running out for Clare McCann to cryogenically preserve her son who died by suicide last week
Time is running out for Clare McCann. The devastated mother desperately trying to keep the lifeless body of her 13-year-old boy preserved so he can 'come back to life' and see the world is not such a 'cruel, horrible place' - and people really do love him. With just 48 hours left to raise $300,000 for cryopreservation, McCann is acutely aware she might miss the crucial time window, and the thought of what to do next is debilitating. 'I've been sitting there with him in the morgue just kissing him, realistically from Thursday I know I should be putting him in a fully synthetic sleeping bad and putting ice packs surrounding him at the minimum to have any kind of chance but I just don't want to disturb him if this is all for nothing,' McCann told Watch McCann's heartbreaking plea in the video player above 'I mean, I want him back, but at the same time, the ice will disfigure him so if I can't use the cryopreservation technology how do I do that to my baby? I can't do that to my beautiful baby. 'If this doesn't work, if I can't raise the money to do this then I can't even think about what's next, a cemetery … I can't even.' McCann was gutted to find her only child Atreyu had died by suicide on Friday after several months of relentless bullying at high school. She said his tormentors held his head under water at school camp, taunted him with name calling, drew pictures on his arms and generally 'made him miserable and withdrawn' to the point he had stayed home from school for the last four weeks. McCann says she wishes she had never sent him to high school. 'Bullies need to be stopped, the system needs to be fixed, this cruel behaviour that goes on it has to stop and schools have to take it seriously and until they do, every child should be home-schooled,' she said. 'I feel so guilty I sent him. Adults need to stand up and fix the system. But how can I fight to save other kids if I can't even save my own child. I need to save him right now that's all I can think about.' McCann has raised almost $12,000 of the $300,000 she needs to have a shot at preserving Atreyu's body. The little boy, named after the hero in The Neverending Story, had talked about the prospect of 'being frozen' when he dies and coming back in the afterlife with his mum. 'We talked about swimming in the ocean, then we joked, no we might get eaten by sharks, so then we thought about coming back as birds and flying together. 'The thought of being able to bring him back gives me something to hang on to. Without that I literally have nothing.' As the hours ticked by this week, and hopes faded for a millionaire with an interest in science coming forward to help fund the cryopreservation, McCann sat with her boy and read him his favourite book. 'I brought him The Neverending story today to read to him in the morgue because we never finished it,' she said. 'It's so sad because the last time we read it was probably two, three weeks ago and we got up to a horrible bit and that's where it was left. So I thought 'I need to take you out of that bit' so I read to him past that bit and beyond. Now I just have to do everything I can to give him a chance to come back.' McCann is hurt by the horrible comments on social media about her plight. 'People are making comments saying I'm entitled, I'm an actress, I'm worth $2 million. I shake my head, I've been a volunteer for the last 10 years, and home-schooling my son. I've never even made like half a million in my life. 'If people don't want to donate or don't agree with what I'm doing then scroll on, why do they have to be so horrible?' Comments like 'what if your son wakes up and you've already passed?' are also hurtful. 'If my son's in cryo, I'm going into cryo. Do you think I'm just gonna let him wake up by himself to his misery? No. And even if I don't make it, I've got friends who've said they'll commit and they'll do it. 'I want him to wake up and see the world can be more kind, and he can get the proper help he needs in a mental health care facility. He can have a second chance.' Founder of Southern Cryonics Peter Tsolakides told time was fast running out for McCann but he was doing everything possible to help. 'We have already lost valuable time so the conditions are not optimal for success for Clare's boy, but no one ever knows, we will help her in whatever way we can. All the members here feel so sorry for what she's gone through,' Mr Tsolakides said. Southern Cryonics is a not-for-profit enterprise and the first cryonics storage facility in the southern hemisphere. Based in Holbrook, it currently houses one body, although more than 40 people have already signed up to go through the process when they die. 'What normally happens is we would have come into contact with the person before death, a medical team would visit the hospital and there is monitoring by the emergency response team until legal death is pronounced,' Mr Tsolakides said. 'It's a complicated process but already, with the time delay, we have missed important steps in cooling the body at the pace we need to keep the brain at optimal health. 'What this process is really about is keeping the brain healthy so that one day when science and medicine catches up, the body is ready for what's next,' he said. Agreeing it is still unknown whether anyone preserved this way can ever be revived, Mr Tsolakides said everyone who has signed up to have their body suspended knows science is a long way behind but it's about 'giving yourself the best chance'.
