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Confronting tragic Kentucky fire in an autopsy room

Posted: Monday, August 20, 2007 12:15 PM by Dateline Editor
Filed Under: ,

By Chetna Purohit, Assistant Producer

It was chaos in Bardstown, Kentucky, in the early morning hours of Feb. 6, 2007.  Police, fire trucks, the Red Cross. A brick house burnt to its core.  Panicked relatives and neighbors stood anxiously in the cold behind yellow police tape waiting for answers -- for any sign of hope.

Visible from the street was a charred bicycle. For hours, fire inspectors combed through the remains of the house.  By daybreak the devastation was clear.  One by one, they carried out the body bags – ten of them.  Just as the last body was being placed in the truck, a man ran towards the home.  Police stopped him just in time.  I watched in horror as the medical examiner told him his 2-year-old twins were in the house.  It was Kentucky’s deadliest fire in 30 years. An entire family wiped out. The youngest was just 17 months.

I thought I had seen the worst of it until I got to the medical examiner’s office.  Walking down the halls, trying to comprehend what I had just seen, I walked past the autopsy room.  On the table was the body of a child.  In the chaos of the day I had managed to hold myself together.  Now, I completely lost it.

The following night I attended a memorial service and was moved by the strength of this close-knit community.  Amidst this tragedy, they found in each other hope for a better tomorrow.

'Dead Men Talking' airs on Dateline NBC Monday night, Aug. 20, at 10 p.m. ET.

 

Several members of the Dateline team reflected on their experience with the Louisville medical examiner's office. Read senior producer Maia Samuel's story on dealing with dead bodies here, and producer Fred Rothenberg's story about a late night phone call here.

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Comments

I think that this was extremely interesting and sad but confusing how the cases where showed by going back and forth. They should be showend one at a time.
I was so confuse that did not know what was the ending result of the Family Fire case. Was it resolved?? Was it an accident???

Gaby, San Jose, CA (Sent Tuesday, August 21, 2007 2:24 AM)

I thought this program was very enlightening well done.  Everyone from the medical examiner to law enforcement were very professional.  The photography was as graphic as was possible to show what was happening and still provide anonymity to the victims and consideration to their living relatives.  Events do not happen in single threads, events become intertwined and the professionals of the medical examiner's office have to keep focused on what they are doing at the time. Life is NOT like the CSI programs of TV.  Testing and thoroughness takes time, and the number of autopsies performed in a day can take its toll on staff.  I believe this program showed all those issues.  Thank you for providing a true glimpse into a part of life we only see glamorized on TV.  A special thanks to those who lost loved ones but gave permission for the cameras to follow their ordeals.  

Keeta Kay Cole (Sent Wednesday, August 22, 2007 10:00 AM)

it is a ver very sad story to think of losing your family all at once. must be very hard for the man that lost his twins. i have a set of twins that are alost two years old i think that if this had happened to me i would have gone crazy. i love my kids so much and just to think off the pain that he must still be feeling must be horrible. we have to enjoy life and our kids we never know what might happen!

carla gil oakland, ca (Sent Wednesday, August 22, 2007 4:48 PM)

I live in Bardstown. Those kids went to the elementry school of the same school district I belong to.  Bardstown High School.  Some of those kids i had seen everyday of my life on the buses.  The amazing thing is, i had never talked to any of them. But in a small town like bardstown ecspecially in the school, it dosent matter if you know someone when they die or not.  Everybody in Bardstown is family.  The funrals were held in the High shcool gym and im pretty sure just about everybody that lives in Nelson county was there.  It was awful.  The family is burid right next to my papaw, everytime i go to visit i stop and put something on the graves of the fire victims.

Katie, Bardstown Kentucly. (Sent Wednesday, May 14, 2008 10:14 AM)



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