MARQUETTE, Mich. (WZMQ) – On Saturday at Northern Michigan University’s Jacobetti Center, over 150 volunteers will partake in aftermath training for a mass casualty situation. Along with the university, over six agencies from the state and federal levels such as the Michigan Mortuary Response Team and the FBI have worked together to showcase the integration processes that go into this kind of response.
Stations throughout the training will cover anthropology and recognition of bodily remains, DNA sampling, fingerprinting, dental record tracing, and X-raying.
Nationally, this is the first ever training exercise of this nature to specifically take place in cold weather conditions.
“We have worked on training like this once before with the Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Team (DMORT), and the last time we were inside. This time, we’re gonna be operating outside,” said Timothy Schramm, the commander of the Michigan Mortuary Response Team. “Basically, we’re testing the theory that we can operate outdoors in a mass fatality response if we have to have a field setup, or if we can’t because of issues in the cold weather.”
Preparations for the training have been made over the past year leading up to this weekend, with Saturday holding 2 separate operational periods for the training runs.
