CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — A few months back Nueces County stopped doing autopsies for other counties. County commissioners made the move because they said the county only earned $138 from each one. The decision had counties scrambling to find a new medical examiner.
Bee County Sheriff Alden Southmayd told 3NEWS that his county now has to send their bodies for an autopsy all the way up to Lockhart, which is between Austin and San Antonio. He said Nueces County’s decision hurt his office.
”As far as our manpower issues, we would be much better off going to Nueces County," Southmayd said. "It’s a lot closer, it’s a lot easier when they do the autopsies we try to have one of our officers in there with them so they can firsthand see it and so forth.”
San Patricio County Judge David Krebs and the commissioners court there decided to use former Nueces County Medical Examiner Dr. Ray Fernandez to do its autopsies. He has setup his own independent business at a Corpus Christi funeral home.
The sheriff, Oscar Rivera, couldn’t be happier with the new arrangement.
"Much better," Rivera said. "Especially, our investigators know that they now have a chance to look at these bodies directly, and its point to us in our field to be able to talk to the doctor and tell us about the mechanism of injuries the cause of death.”
He said that autopsy work isn’t restricted to a Monday thru Friday workweek.
"We have had autopsies on Saturday and a Sunday whatever day of the week it is we have autopsies done,” Rivera said.
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