Colorado Springs – Fears that tuberculosis bacteria may have escaped from the body of a man killed in a traffic accident have prompted the El Paso County Coroner’s Office to test its employees for TB.
Dr. Robert Bux, the El Paso County coroner, recognized tubercular lungs in Antonio Barrera Nunez, 48, an illegal immigrant from Mexico, during an autopsy in late March.
“It was not that I didn’t recognize it immediately, because I did,” Bux said. “When I cut, I shut things down at that point, but it’s just that you don’t know ahead of time.”
Bux shut the doors and asked one of the two people with him in the morgue to leave. He and a helper double-gloved, put on extra protection and preserved the specimens for testing.
Still, the morgue’s heating, ventilation and air conditioning system is such that bacteria in the man’s body could have become airborne and circulated to other parts of the building.
Follow-up tests show that Nunez did not have the type of tuberculosis that is resistant to drugs.
Coroner’s offices nationwide have been building stand-alone facilities so bodies with infectious diseases or that are decomposed can be kept separate from the main facility.
Arapahoe County has a fully contained, negative-air-flow room where autopsies are done on bodies suspected of having infectious diseases, said Lisa Avendano, administrator for the coroner’s office.
Avendano said medical examiners wear gowns, masks and protective eye coverings for every autopsy, and additional precautions are taken when an infectious disease is suspected.
Some diseases, including HIV/AIDS, are no longer contagious once the person has died, Avendano said.
Others – including tuberculosis – remain active even after death.
If Nunez had been a legal immigrant, he would have had a chest X-ray before entering the country, said Bux.
He said that the chance of his employees getting tuberculosis is low, though they still need to be tested.
“The HVAC is advertised to bring in air and throw it outside, one pass through. Whether it does it or not, I’m not sure yet. It hasn’t worked in times past because we’ve had problems with it. They’ve put in a bunch of money on it; it’s not for want of trying.”
Staff writer Erin Emery can be reached at 719-522-1360 or eemery@denverpost.com.
