On the scene
 A team of radiographers was involved in the identification of the victims of the bombings on the London transport system on 7 July. Following mobilisation of the mass disaster plan for London, radiographers registered with the Association of Forensic Radiographers (AFR) were called from across the UK, setting up a fully working department within 48 hours of the incidents.
“Working as part of an investigation of this nature is very different from the normal role of a radiographer,” said Catherine Rock, coordinator of the AFR’s UK response team. “Dealing with the deceased in a respectful manner whilst meeting the exacting requirements of a criminal forensic investigation, places considerable demands on all those involved. All of our members are volunteers who have been specially trained for this purpose and who were released by their hospitals to assist with this tragic incident.”
For the first time in the UK, state of the art digital and CR systems were employed, courtesy of GE Medical, Xograph Imaging systems and Ferrania UK. “The value of high technology imaging was certainly recognised,” commented Mark Viner, Chair of the AFR. “By varying display parameters, a variety of different structures can be visualised on the same image; bone, soft tissue, and foreign bodies including both metallic fragments, and non-metallic parts, all of which have to be extracted and identified.
“Now that we have established its value, hopefully we can formulate a national and international standard for radiographic identification of mass fatality incidents using modern technologies,” he said.
Click here to visit the AFR website.
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