By Mary Drier
Staff Writer
TUSCOLA COUNTY — With the approval of a new Medical Examiner Scene Investigators (MESI) program, law enforcement officials will soon be able to spend more time doing their primary job of protecting and serving.
Tuscola County Commissioners approved establishing a special MESI program and that they would operate as independent contractors.
While training, the new MESIs will be paid $15 per hour and paid that same rate when they have to attend court regarding a case they handled. MESIs would be paid $150 per medical examiner investigation call.
Those who signed up are Tom Kern, Nancy Stimson, and Larry Walker, who are all retired law enforcement officers; and John McKenney, who is a retired U.S. Public Health Service RN. Training will be done by Forensic Pathologist Dr. Kanu Virani and Tuscola and Huron County’s Medical Director Doctor Russel Bush.
“Our office and other county police agencies have provided this service for over 20 years on a voluntary basis without expecting or receiving reimbursement to respective budgets,” explained Sheriff Lee Teschendorf who was one of those who pushed for independent MESIs.
The lack of trained MESIs in the county become such an issue the chiefs’ of police in the county took their concerns to Tuscola County Commissioners in October 2013. Shortly after that when no action was taken, Vassar and Cass City police departments balked at responding to MESI calls because of short staffing and budget costs.
According to Teschendorf, proving MESI services has strained his budget and that of law enforcement departments throughout the county as such a call can take several hours to complete.
Because staff reductions at nearly all law enforcement agencies in Tuscola County and years without updated training, the number of trained Medical Examiner -Scene Investigators (MESI) have greatly reduced. Because of that, response times to medical examiner cases have increased due to this lack of officers able to respond.
The problem came to the forefront from an incident where a law enforcement officer’s family member passed away in the front yard and laid there for five ours before an ME was able to respond.
Because many law enforcement agencies only have one officer working at a time, an ME call has to wait if officers are handling another call like a serious or fatal car accident, which could take several hours to complete the report.
While law enforcement agencies have assisted with doing on-scene investigations for the Medical Examiners Office, they have no obligation to do that function. Plus handling a case like that can take several hours involving overtime and delayed response to other calls.
Mary Drier is a staff writer for the Tuscola County Advertiser. She can be reached at drier@tcadvertiser.com.