•  We may go home smelling like a decomposed body, and sometimes we forget because we're so used to it. I know I've gone into a scene before where the body's been there for a couple of days, it's decomposing, the smell is bad, they may be covered in flies, gnats, maggots, I'm covered in deep sweat and stench... And have walked into a restaurant and stood in line for a sandwich, forgetting completely how I smell and where I just came from, and everyone is looking at me like I'm crazy because I smell hideous. And we just forget. We get so used to it, and it's something that we deal with on a daily basis. I guess one thing that gets me is how quickly the flies actually lay eggs and hatch and reproduce in a short period of time. If someone is in a house deceased, it doesn't take long for there to be a huge amount of flies. So, a fly only lives 15 to 30 days, and every time they lay eggs, they lay about 150 at a time, so they also can lay five to six batches of 150 eggs every few days, and once those hatch to a maggot in about a day, they can reproduce after two to three days. And so that's how quickly they're going to accumulate in a scene that's closed off. (01:08)

•  So, when we move a body that's covered in flies and gnats, they're going to scatter. Many times I have moved a body over, because that's part of what we do is look at the body for trauma, which is difficult to see on a decomposed body  by the way. But, we do look and the gnats are going to scatter and fly everywhere. Low and behold, you take a deep breath and a little gnat goes right up your nose. So, that's happened to me many times. I have also taken a deep breath at a scene where there are quite a few flies and actually swallowed a fly before. And let me tell you there is nothing worse than a fly moving around in the back of your throat, wiggling and you can't get it down or up. I mean, you cough like crazy, you're trying to drink stuff to wash it down, it just stays there and it's so annoying and you're like, I'm pretty sure I need antibiotics, because this fly has been on a body and is not exactly what I wanted to have for lunch. (04:08)

• So bugs love me, I don't know why, but that is something that we will always have to deal with. It certainly doesn't deter us from doing our job, but sometimes it can certainly slow us down, but it doesn't keep us from doing what we need to do. I just thought I would share with you some of the things that we deal with that you may not see on TV. Many times I've stood on an ant pile not even knowing that I'm standing on one and felt the burn of ant bites on my feet, again, part of the job, but not pleasant. So I would appreciate any ideas on how to avoid getting bit or stung. I know that I have tried all kinds of organic things, and it's just hard to get them to stay off of you because there are so many of them, which to us is just another day in the life of a death investigator. (08:27)

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•  My journey is a forensic nurse began quite some time ago, I got out of nursing school... And at that time, there was no such thing as forensic nursing. I was a charge nurse in the local emergency room, and my unit director came up and asked me to train to be a sexual assault nurse examiner. At the time, of course I didn't know much about what it was, but I did know that when we had a patient come into the emergency room that had been sexually assaulted, we would struggle to do the exam correctly. Because we would do the rape kit on that patient, and it would take probably about four hours because the directions were so detailed, we didn't want to mess anything up. It would take us away from all of our other patients, we would have to give them to another nurse and struggle to do the right kit correctly. It was just really a long drawn out process. They had decided, Well, we're going to train nurses to do this, they would do this all the time, they would be experienced, they would know what they're doing, they would be able to testify in court and know what trauma looks like from a sexual assault aspect. My boss asked me to do that and I did reluctantly, I wasn't super excited about it. I really didn't really know what I was getting into, but over the years, and of course, I've done it for 21 years. Over the years of testifying at court and actually helping get those perpetrators sentenced, many of them or most of them, life in prison. It was so invigorating to have that power to be able to help get justice for the victims. (00:31)

•  Keep in mind, this is before CSI and before Forensic Files, none of that stuff was really on TV yet, right? Forensic nursing was just becoming a theme.  So I called my local medical examiner's office and asked them how I could learn to be a death investigator, they told me to just get the training anywhere I could, save all my certificates and keep my CV updated, which is what I did. I sent myself to the University of St. Louis to the medical school, and I took the training course. I could not get certified because I was not working in the field of death investigation, but I at least I took the course and came home with that knowledge so that I could start looking for a job in death investigation. I found one in Harris County. I moved to Houston and I worked there for years and got so much experience working with the best of the best... Houston is such a melting pot of people, there were all sorts of different things going on there, which they go on everywhere, we just don't hear about them. But I got the best experience ever. So then I moved back to this area, worked briefly as deputy for Dallas County, then got the job working for Denton County as a forensic death investigator, which is where I'm at now. It's kind of strange because when I was a child, I was scared to death of death, I would go to sleep at night afraid I wouldn't wake up, I thought that the last thing I said to my parents before I went to bed was the last thing they were ever going to hear from me. So to find myself working in this field now is a little strange to me. (02:38)

•  And I think what makes it easier for me is in the hospital, when you're taking care of patients... You get to know them, you get to know their family, you almost feel like you're a part of their family. And then something happens, they code, and then they're gone, and you feel like you've lost a family member. After going through that for years and years, or having people come into the ER talking... They're having chest pain, but they're still talking and then code and then pass away. You try to connect with your patients and you feel like you know them, you get to know the families and a little about the dynamics over time, and then it's really difficult when something happens to them because you do really feel like you lost a family member. It was harder there for me than it is now. I do make sure when I get a call that I don't know the person. I always ask the police when they call the reported death to me, what's the name of the person is. There are cases where they don't know or somebody's a John Doe or Jane Doe and they're unidentified. But for the most part, I need to know what their name is because I do not want to go on a death scene when someone that I know or a close friend or someone has passed away. We do have protocols in place where we kind of step up for each other as investigators to help in situations like that. (04:37)

•  My mom was a nurse, she always told me, 'Don't be a nurse, you're under-paid and overworked'. And she had a book shelf full of books. And what did I do? I didn't read anything, but I looked at the pictures. I wanted to see blood, I wanted to see guts, I wanted to see cuts and all the things, so that's what I looked for in all the pictures of her nursing books for some strange, morbid reason. But it was fascinating to me. So if you're interested in forensic nursing or nursing in general and you have questions or anything, just definitely reach out and I can, I guess, help in some way or try to answer some of your questions, if I can. So that's a little about me. And hopefully, if anyone is considering the field of Death Investigation or sexual assault nursing or just nursing in general, you can always reach out to me and I will answer questions for you, and if I can't, I will get the answer for you. But I always know that your goals are attainable. (06:30)

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