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An interlocal agreement between the Bexar and Dallas County medical examiners has been approved to help both agencies better prepare for future mass-casualty events.
Bexar County commissioners approved the measure this week that allows one medical examiner's office to come to the aid of the other to conduct mass death investigations, should the scale of natural disaster deaths or man-made deaths become overwhelming.
The agreement also allows for death investigations in either county where there may be a perceived local conflict in performing an examination. And the agreement ensures death investigations can undergo independent technical review of anthropology reports.
Bexar County Chief Medical Examiner Kimberly Molina told Texas Public Radio in a statement that the agreement is not about a day-to-day staffing issue.
"There is currently no shortage of staff within the medical examiner's office," she said. The office remains fully staffed to perform critical duties and operations continue without interruption."
Molina's office withstood a severe test back in 2022 with back-to-back mass casualty events.
In May of that year, the medical examiner investigated 21 shooting deaths at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde. And then in the following month of June, Molina's office investigated the heat-related truck deaths of 53 migrants at the hands of smugglers. Molina's office did receive assistance in that case from two medical examiners from Travis County and one from Dallas County.
That huge caseload came on top of pandemic deaths and every crime and traffic accident cases in the area.
County commissioners that year approved $628,000 for the medical examiner to hire six additional employees to help it keep is crucial accreditation. Molina told commissioners then that their annual individual caseload for each forensic pathologist hit 400, but national accreditation standards require that number to be kept to 250.
