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County Unveils Medical Examiners Facility

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By JOSH POLTILOVE

jpoltilove@tampatrib.com

Published: February 28, 2009

TAMPA - When John Feegel started as Hillsborough County's chief medical examiner in 1973, his office was in the basement of Tampa General Hospital.

The office moved into an 8,000-square-foot building on Morgan Street in 1978, but 30 years later it had become cramped, and there were no appropriate waiting areas for families, funeral directors, law enforcement officers or reporters.

Feegel died in 2003, but his son was on hand Thursday for the grand opening of the new office, 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.

The Morgan Street office had only 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 and more comfortable areas for families and other visitors, as well as capabilities to activate a mass fatality operation. And 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 project has been in the works since the 1990s, said Dick Bailey, operations manager for the office.

The complex can hold 150 to 160 bodies. Electrical hookups outside would allow the use of refrigerated trailers, which could more than double the capacity should there be a catastrophe.

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

In the old building, 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 conducted in the new morgue since late last year.

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

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

Feegel was the county's first medical examiner, serving until 1977. Prior to that, the county used coroners.

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

After the ribbon-cutting, Adams conducted a tour for media members of areas where bodies are refrigerated, evidence is stored, toxicology tests are performed and families go to identify loved ones.

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

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

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