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Hillsborough Medical Examiner Opens State-Of-The-Art Facility

Tribune file photo by JAY CONNER

The new Hillsborough County Medical Examiner Complex on North 46th Street.

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By JOSH POLTILOVE | The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 26, 2009

Updated: 02/26/2009 02:01 pm

TAMPA - When John Feegel started as Hillsborough County's chief medical examiner, his office was in the basement of Tampa General Hospital.

The office moved into a more spacious 8,000-square-foot building on Morgan Street in 1978. Thirty years later, the building became cramped, and there wasn't a proper place for families, funeral directors, law enforcement or reporters who frequent the building.

Feegel died in 2003, but today his son was on hand for the grand opening of the office's new location, a 31,500-square-foot complex at 11025 N. 46th St.

"I know he's looking down, smiling, saying, 'Good job everybody,' " Mark Feegel told the roughly 100 people attending the ribbon-cutting ceremony.

The Morgan Street office only had space to store about 40 bodies, and employees worked in such tight quarters that "it was like a market in Calcutta," Hillsborough County Medical Examiner Vernard Adams said.

The new complex features state-of-the-art equipment, more comfort area for families and others visiting the morgue, as well as capabilities to activate a mass fatality operation. Unlike the old building, it isn't in the middle of a flood zone.

County Administrator Pat Bean said the new complex cost $11.8 million "and was worth every penny."
The new complex has been in the works since the 1990s, said Dick Bailey, operations manager for the office. It won't flood even if a hurricane hits the Bay area. It has the capacity for 150 to 160 bodies.

Out back are electrical hookups for refrigerated trailers that could more than double the capacity, should there be a major catastrophe that produced some 400 bodies.

Adams said the addition of a special room for grieving families is important. In it, there is a sofa, flowers, tissues and a large window that families can look through to identify loved ones.

In the old building, he said, there was nothing close to that.

"We would roll a body out into a hallway by a Coke machine, and the family would look through a little glass window in a door," he said.

Autopsies and examinations have been going on in the new morgue since late last year.

Medical examiners perform about 1,500 autopsies a year, and about 2,000 bodies move through the office each year. About 10,000 deaths occur every year in Hillsborough County.

Feegel and the county's other former chief medical examiner, Peter L. Lardizabal, were recognized at today's event, and bronze plaques will be placed in the complex in their honor.

Feegel was the county's first medical examiner, serving from 1973 to 1977. Prior to that, the county used a coroner system.

Lardizabal, who served from 1977 to 1990, established an in-house forensic toxicology laboratory at the office, according to the county's Web site. He died in 2004 at age 79.

After the ribbon cutting, Adams walked a group of media members through a tour of the complex. He showed off areas where bodies are refrigerated, evidence is stored, toxicology tests are performed and families go to identify loved ones.

Asked how long it would be before Hillsborough outgrows its new morgue, Adams said, "We'll all be dead when that happens."

Information from reporter Channing Poole and Tribune archives was used in this report. Reporter Josh Poltilove can be reached at (813) 259-7691.

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