UNDER THE MICROSCOPE
Once again, we have sensational news, this time of a schoolboy dying 11 days after allegedly being slapped by his teacher. Media went to town, and law enforcement officials are all over the newspapers, radio, and TV, being interviewed and offering their take on the matter, all of which are, at this point, purely speculative.
What would put the matter to rest and determine the real cause of death should be an honest-to-goodness forensic autopsy. But the only two forensic pathologists in the country are not being tapped to handle this case. The PNP Crime Laboratory in Camp Crame performed the autopsy. However, as far as I know and based on conversations with these two forensic pathologists, the PNP Crime Lab doesn’t even have a board-certified pathologist in their ranks, let alone a forensic pathologist.
Why harp on this issue? Well, determining the cause of death in alleged medico-legal cases is not an easy job. It requires at least three years of training in anatomic pathology with lots of microscopic work and study, and only after passing a specialty board examination can one be certified as competent in the performance of an autopsy. An additional year or two of training in forensic pathology qualifies one as a forensic pathologist.
An autopsy is not simply cutting open a body and looking at the internal organs with the naked eye. To establish a definitive diagnosis requires a thorough microscopic examination of the affected organs to discern the true nature of the disease. Without it, one is reduced to pure speculation, and that simply shouldn’t be the case when the fate of an accused person hangs in the balance.
Therein lies the crucial problem of our justice system, which has to rely on the findings of law enforcement officers. If their findings and conclusions are not based on scientific fact and objective evidence, there will be miscarriage of justice, which may have happened, considering it occasionally does even in countries with advanced forensic science and well-trained police.
In the case at hand, the temporal relationship of the “slap” and the child’s death does not necessarily imply cause-and-effect. For one, causing an intracerebral hemorrhage requires considerably more force than a slap, no matter how hard it is. Otherwise, we would have had thousands of boxers ending up dead of brain hemorrhage.
Surely, the teacher who is being blamed for the child’s death is being crucified online for her “mean” act, if it happened. She faces a possible case of “homicide through reckless imprudence” if Camp Crame says that the slap led to a brain hemorrhage. I can just imagine her tortured state of mind right now.
So what happens when the “autopsy” is done by the PNP crime lab? Will the ones who perform it be able to discern the real cause of death? Will the autopsy be performed according to established standards with gross and microscopic examination?
It is so easy for an untrained person to conclude that there has been bleeding in the brain when blood is definitely going to exude when one cuts into the flesh. There is always blood in our tissues’ blood vessels which is required for delivery of oxygen to all parts of the body. Thus, one famous non-pathologist claimed that there was bleeding in the brain just because blood oozed from the coverings of the skull and brain when he cut it open. Not so fast! There has to be evidence of blood clots and its pressure effect on the brain, none of which he described in his sloppily written report.
This case is similar to another one years ago, which was also widely publicized as a possible criminal case. A child fell after being pushed, and was subsequently admitted in a children’s hospital. He died a few days later. Dr. Raquel Fortun, our first trained forensic pathologist, conducted the autopsy, which showed that the child died of a viral encephalitis, or inflammation of the brain. Case closed. Nobody was at fault.
We wait with bated breath on the pronouncements from Camp Crame regarding this case as to the cause of death. Will the teacher be dragged to court based on the autopsy “evidence,” or will the cause of death be found to be from natural causes, as in the previous case cited above?
What is certain is that this teacher’s life will never be the same again, whether found innocent or guilty. She will suffer mental anguish for being unfairly blamed for the child’s death even if exonerated. On the other hand, a jail term awaits her if found guilty based on autopsy findings that may not hold water.
Pray that it doesn’t happen to you.