Long before we had CSI and all those wonderful crime dramas,
the New York City medical examiners were climbing up staircases to examine the
dead, and it wasn’t glamorous or even rewarding. Dr. Schmutter was an immigrant
physician from the Soviet Union, assigned to respond to homicides, accidents,
and mysterious deaths were the cause was undetermined. The doctors were mostly
immigrants from USSR or Haiti, and it was thankless work. You had to show up at
whatever scene of death there was, whether the elevator worked or not.
Traveling by subway was a long haul in the days before Guiliani, and as any NYC
resident of the time will remember, it was never a safe place to be at night.
Zoya Schmutter writes in a way the captures the sights,
sounds, and even smells of her work. She discusses the intense inspections of
the dead bodies, taking blood and tissue samples, the dark, dingy basements
where the medical examiners worked. There are a few short anecdotes about her
cases, like the exotic dancer with the double life, or the mummified woman
whose family didn’t know she was dead. Some photos or maps would be helpful,
and perhaps some more info about the ways that the pathologist determines the
cause of death.
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