Volusia County approves negotiating contract with potential new medical examiner

DeLAND, Fla. — Volusia County's chief medical examiner stepped down after sending a scathing letter to the state highlighting problems at the morgue that have gone unsolved for years.

Dr. Sara Zydowicz said they're understaffed, they have a crumbling building and they often run out of room at the morgue.

The county is looking to hire an interim medical examiner, Dr. Jon Thogmartin.

He said if the county follows his plan, not only will he fix the problems at the medical examiner's office, but he said it will also regain its accreditation.

The Volusia County Council approved negotiating a contract with Thogmartin to become the county's chief medical examiner. Only Councilwoman Heather Post voted against it.

Thogmartin said most of the county's storage issues will be fixed when it drops Seminole County's cases.

"Seminole was your big storage problem," he said. "After Seminole is gone, you're really not going to have a cooler issue anymore."

Thogmartin is currently the medical examiner for Pasco and Pinellas counties.

Volusia County brought him in last month to do a review of its facility after Zydowicz wrote a letter to the state about a backlog of 200 cases, not enough staff and the county recommending she store bodies at the jail and have inmates move the bodies around -- a claim the county denies.

"Anybody with authority -- including the two deputy county managers or myself or the director -- never suggested," County Manager Jim Dinneen said. "That never came to light."

Things were being stored in the cooler and taking up space that did not need to be.

Thogmartin said having the medical examiner coming in and working on weekends will also free up the backlog and using a voice dictation software will make it easier and quicker for medical examiners to complete reports. He said those changes will help the county regain its accreditation.

Some questioned the fact that Thogmartin was offered the interim position right after he did his report, which said the medical examiner's office only needed some minor adjustments, but Thogmartin assured the County Council Tuesday that there was no quid pro quo involved.

Cox Media Group