Among the recommendations stemming from the provincial coroner's report on the Humboldt Bronco bus crash, those bringing about changes to identification processes are on the mind of Saskatchewan's Coroner Clive Weighill. In his statement yesterday, Weighill focused on the need for cooperation between the Coroner's Office and the Saskatchewan Health Authority. The mission is to review policies and processes that would lead to accurate and timely identification of the deceased in the case of a mass casualty. Weighill confirms that discussions are already under way with the agencies, and he is confident in the outcome of the upcoming planning in the event of a mass casualty. 

Weighill elaborates, "I think when something like this happens, there are always so many unknowns that could spring up, you can never say everything is failsafe. But we are going to an incident command model; it's a model I'm very familiar with. We would have an in-charge coroner at the scene and we would designate other coroners to assist. For instance, the in-charge coroner would be there to liaise with the police, with EMS, and anyone else he had to liaise with. He or she would assign a coroner to be in charge of transportation, another in charge of identification, setting up a temporary morgue, and anything else we would need set up."

Weighill goes on to say that the recommendation commits to a plan that would do more than simply prevent mix-ups, as was the case with one misidentification during the Humboldt Bronco's tragedy. He confirms, "It's not just going to prevent mixups in identification. It's going to put us in a spot where our coroners on the way to a scene are going to know what is expected of them and how they're going to contact the people they need to help them. That's what this is all about."

As for the role of the Saskatchewan Health Authority, Weighill details the requests made of the health care providers in the event of a future mass incident. "We've asked the Saskatchewan Health Authority to review their policy on how they identify people who come into their care, and we'll be looking at the same of people that come into our care. I can say that probably from now on everybody that would come in is going to be a 'Jane Doe' or a 'John Doe' until we have a positive identification on each person." Weighill went on to explain that there was considerable pressure to speed up the identification process by the media, by social media, and in response to the plans for the memorial service.

When asked if the new processes would bring about a longer time frame for identification in such a circumstance, Weighill was clear, "Things will be much slower into the future. We will not identify anybody and put anything out until we are 100 percent positive." Weighill added that as part of the initiative, all full time coroners and their supervisors would attend a fatality identity course conducted by the RCMP in Lethbridge in June. Community coroners will meet in May to receive details of the new mass fatality plan.