CSI: Community Solving Investigations
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| Patricia Spiro and 20 other specially trained forensic nurses are on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week. |
As a forensic nurse, Spiro and 20 other specially trained emergency nurses are on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week at Community Medical Centers’ facilities. The nurses have gone through extra training to earn their sexual assault forensic examiner title, also known as S.A.F.E.
After serving a total of five years in law enforcement, including a year in the Fresno County Sheriff's Department, Spiro decided to go back to school for her nursing degree. But she still felt drawn to forensics. As the coordinator of Community’s S.A.F.E. program, Spiro integrates her experience in law enforcement with her knowledge in nursing.
“I thought it was a way I could carry that part of law enforcement that I loved,” Spiro said. “I still had that urge.”
Community treats up to 55 cases a month, each with the utmost care, Spiro said.
In one case a victim of sexual assault, who appeared to have no visual, physical evidence of rape, told a forensic nurse the suspect had licked her ear. The nurse took a swab of the area and sent it to the crime lab. The suspect, who claimed he had never touched the victim, was convicted from one strand of DNA found from the saliva on the swab.
“We all have that little bit of gut feeling or intuition that drives us to look a little deeper,” Spiro said.
When victims and suspects come in to the hospital, through law enforcement, ambulatory services or voluntarily arriving, the forensic nurse is immediately paged. The nurse collects every strand of evidence from the patient. The evidence is carefully and systematically labeled, packaged, sealed and sent to the crime lab for further police investigation. The evidence is then brought to the department of justice during prosecution of the case.
“We’re a part of a huge process,” Spiro said. “And that one piece, that one role that we have is very, very important.”
The most challenging part of being a forensic nurse, she said, is being an unbiased, forensic collector. She treats both victims and suspects as patients, without judgment. She said she doesn’t know what happened or didn’t happen until the evidence is collected and examined.
“It’s a very time-consuming, meticulous process,” Spiro said.
Suspects are examined in a special law enforcement room located in one corner of Community’s emergency department guarded by officers. Victims are brought in a private room on the opposite corner of the hospital. The rooms were built specifically to minimize any chance of crossing. Nurses also use back doors and distance the times they are seen as well.
Spiro stresses the importance of treating every case the same, every single time – without getting too attached or emotional.
But she admits, “I think there would be something wrong with you, to not get a little emotional.”
“It’s the most violating thing that could happen to a person,” Spiro said. “She’s already been violated, and here we’re coming in – strangers – asking her to do something the perpetrator possibly did. And that’s a hard thing to deal with. But we do it. We get through the process. We just have to be able to talk them through it and make them understand.”
Spiro adds, “You can’t be insensitive and do this job. You have to have a passion for it.”
This story was reported by Millie Tang. She can be reached at mtang2@communitymedical.org.