02x07 - The Things Men Do

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[music playing]

NARRATOR A body is discovered after a rollover wreck

with hardly a scratch on it.

Amazingly, for a guy that's been rolling

around inside a pickup truck, he's got

very little external trauma.

NARRATOR Even stranger is what Dr. G finds inside.

Death was knocking on this man's door.

NARRATOR Then, three men start a desert crossing.

One doesn't make it to the finish.

He's dead right there and he's only .

-year-olds shouldn't die.

NARRATOR A tragedy that transcends age and nationality,

revealed by Dr. G's autopsy.

When you're naked and on my slab,

I can't tell what your status in life is.

We're gonna need to find out why you d*ed.

NARRATOR Plus, how Dr. G's investigators

analyze a crime scene.

I need my investigator to be my eyes and ears.

NARRATOR Altered lives, baffling medical mysteries,

shocking revelations.

These are the everyday cases of Dr. G, Medical Examiner.

It's Saturday morning, a day when

most people are just beginning to wind down for the weekend.

But in the morgue, business is picking up.

Well, it's typical Saturday morning

fare for me, coming in on the weekend, having auto accidents.

NARRATOR This morning's challenge

is a young man found in the cab of his pickup truck

off the interstate.

On the police report, it looks like a routine case of death

behind the wheel.

But as the morgue team well knows, looks can be deceiving.

The night before, around AM, a deputy is out on the graveyard

patrol in central Texas.

He passes a long trail of twisted metal and broken glass.

At the end of it, an upended truck.

He immediately calls for backup.

Trooper Aurelia Hernandez responds.

When I arrived at the scene, I saw a white and colored pickup

overturned on its rooftop in the bar ditch

and there was a male subject in the pickup.

NARRATOR The man appears to be dead at the scene.

But the proper authority must make it official.

In this jurisdiction, a Justice of the Peace

makes the declaration.

If they make it to the hospital,

the hospital-- the doctors will determine the cause of death.

But out in the field, like there on the highway,

so we have to determine.

We do get called out.

NARRATOR It's a tough outing for Justice Ortiz.

The victim, -year-old Luis Rey,

is not just another statistic.

I knew the deceased, when he was young, a young--

a young kid.

You know, he used to hang around with my kids.

In this little town like this, everyone knows everyone.

And sometimes, it's sad.

You know, it happens a lot.

NARRATOR The local kid grew up to be a father, with three

children of his own, and landed a well-paying job

in manufacturing.

Now, at the scene of his death, the trooper is frustrated

in her search for clues.

It was difficult to make an investigation at the time,

because it was dark.

But I gathered as much information as I could.

NARRATOR Dr. G's in the dark too.

Anything could have happened to the young father,

from being run off the road to falling

asleep behind the wheel.

She'll now have to see what she can discover with nothing more

than the body of the victim.

So we've got a -year-old in a pickup truck.

I need to know why did he leave the roadway?

Did he fall asleep?

And then, what kind of trauma caused his death?

This is really sad.

NARRATOR Dr. G's mission, as always,

is to find the precise cause of death,

which is often surprising, even in a garden variety car wreck.

One thing she knows for sure, about % of all car fatalities

are alcohol-related.

-year-old man on Friday night leaving the roadway,

single vehicle accident, that's usually alcohol.

But I-- you know, I keep an open opinion.

I am looking for other things.

NARRATOR From police reports, Dr. G

learns that Luis was driving about miles per hour

and was not wearing a seat belt. This

is the perfect prescription for massive external trauma.

There's a lot of injuries that occur with those rollovers

when you're not seat belted in.

And they're usually pretty severe.

He's gonna have multiple injuries.

I think there-- he's gonna have several reasons to have d*ed.

NARRATOR First, she catalogs the trauma by conducting

a full external exam.
[ … ]

A lot of our time and energy goes into traffic accidents,

just documenting the injuries.

, , , , .

, , , , .

He has a little abrasion on the left forehead,

a little contusion or a bruise on his cheek,

little-- little mark on his nose,

linear, superficial lacerations on his back

with some glass embedded up there.

NARRATOR She also notices extensive red

spotting on his face and chest, a phenomenon

called a petechiae.

They're basically burst little capillaries, either in the skin

or the delicate membranes of the inner aspect of the eyes.

Just little-- little tiny hemorrhages.

NARRATOR Petechiae are the result of a massive increase

in blood pressure when stress is applied to the chest or neck.

Dozens or hundreds of tiny blood vessels

burst, leaving red pinhole marks on the surface of the skin.

People think, when they read a little bit about forensic,

oh, if you have petechiae, little burst

blood vessels in your eyelids, you must've been strangled.

And it doesn't always mean that.

It's a mechanism that you can get with anything.

Like heart failure, we see it, because of the heart

not pumping enough blood out.

So the pressure's built up.

I don't necessarily know the significance of that petechiae,

until I finish the autopsy.

NARRATOR By the end of the external exam,

Dr. G has inventoried what amounts

to a collection of minor nicks and cuts, none of which

could have been fatal.

Amazingly, for a guy that's been rolling around

inside a pickup truck, going miles an hour,

he's gotten very little external trauma.

We-- we're really seeing very minor stuff.

NARRATOR This makes her wonder just

what she'll find on the inside.

DR. G (VOICEOVER) I've been fooled before.

I mean, certainly, you know, I get

a lot of accidents with a little external trauma

and then massive internal trauma.

I was pretty sure there'd still be some pretty horrific things

internally.

NARRATOR Coming up next, horrific things indeed.

Oh my god.

NARRATOR But nothing like what Dr. G expected.

He's got kidney cancer.

He's got an adrenal renal cell carcinoma of his kidney.

NARRATOR When "Dr. G, Medical Examiner" continues.

It's the morning after another fatal Friday

night in Dr. G's morgue.

She performs the standard Y incision

on a late night traffic victim.

-year-old Luis Ray had d*ed in a rollover accident, in which

he had not been wearing a seat belt.

But strangely, the body shows few signs of external trauma.

Sometimes I see horrific things with auto accidents.

I mean, the-- the scalp off and the brains coming out.

I mean, it's really obviously, as soon as you see a person,

why they d*ed.

NARRATOR Now, more technicians draw blood, urine, and eye

fluid for toxicology testing.

As she prepares to open the rib cage, Dr. G expects the worst.

This will be interesting.

I'm expecting some significant internal injuries, particularly

since he's dead at the scene.

I expect upper abdominal trauma, some lacerated liver, lot

of blood collecting in the abdominal cavity,

a lot of broken ribs, possibly punctured lungs, and maybe

some trauma to the heart.

NARRATOR But when she finishes opening the chest,

she finds nothing of the kind.

DR. G (VOICEOVER) Well, first thing

I notice when I open him up is there's no blood anywhere.

And there's no blood in any of his pleural cavities

where his lungs sit.

There's no blood around his heart.

All his organs look pretty good.

NARRATOR The man doesn't have so much as a cracked rib.

So far, there is not a shred of evidence

as to what k*lled Luis Ray.

I'm a bit surprised there's no trauma, really none at all,

internally.

I am a bit surprised.

So far, nothing.

Still a mystery.

NARRATOR There's one last likely place to check, the part

of the body most likely to sustain

deadly injury in a car wreck.

So we're ruling out the chest and abdominal.

Well, he doesn't have chest and abdomen.

So it's probably has head.

I've seen cases where they roll many times,

they're fine below the neck.

And then, they've got severe head

injuries or upper neck injury.

Maybe the brain got jostled inside the skull

and we have closed head injuries.
[ … ]

I get my assistant to open the skull.

And we take-- and I take the skull cap off.

And there is no trauma.

NARRATOR Dr. G now faces a conundrum.

A man is found dead in a truck after a high speed

rollover accident, but inexplicably he

seems to be unscathed.

DR. G (VOICEOVER) So now, we've got some problems,

because I am left with no chest hemorrhage,

no neck hemorrhage, no abdominal hemorrhage, and no head trauma.

So no trauma anywhere in this man.

So what happened to him?

NARRATOR The State Highway Patrol

has waited for daylight to complete

their own investigation.

I went back out the next day to see

if I had missed anything.

NARRATOR There should be evidence at the scene

if there was another vehicle involved

or some form of foul play.

But what bothers the trooper is what she doesn't find.

There were no additional car parts to suggest a collision

with another vehicle.

Nor is there rubber on the road, the usual sign of braking

or swerving to avoid an accident.

There was no skid marks on the roadway.

The subject never took evasive action.

NARRATOR The officer offers her own working theory.

I concluded that the subject fell asleep at the wheel

and he never braked to avoid, you know,

going onto the bar ditch.

NARRATOR But Dr. G has her own ideas.

Without the braking, it tells me

that there's something wrong with him that caused

this accident, whether he fell asleep or he was intoxicated

or he had some natural disease.

NARRATOR Dr. G now has to consider the possibility

that Luis Rey d*ed of natural causes

and even that he could've been dead

before the truck left the road.

There's a lot of really weird, out there kind

of things that could happen.

I just need to do the autopsy to find out.

NARRATOR She recalls that among the laundry

list of superficial wounds was a cut on the forehead.

And beneath it, a hematoma.

When I saw the hematoma, or collection of blood

in his scalp, I knew at least his heart

was pumping during the accident, that he wasn't dead

prior to the accident.

NARRATOR That is he wasn't dead yet.

But could an underlying condition

have triggered the accident and been

the ultimate cause of death?

The autopsy continues with Dr. G examining

and measuring the organs, one of which is in a shocking state.

That's interesting.

NARRATOR On his left kidney is a sizable tumor,

one that a young man shouldn't have.

He's got kidney cancer.

He's got adrenal cell carcinoma of his kidney.

And it was about two inches, about centimeters, in size.

That's very unusual for a -year-old.

That's a cancer that you see, well, typically, in men,

, , -year-old men.

NARRATOR But kidney cancer is generally a slow k*ller.

And Luis had d*ed suddenly.

Based on the progression of the disease,

Dr. G rules out the condition as a possible cause

of the accident.

There's probably not a good reason for him to become

unconscious because of that.

NARRATOR The next organ she checks reveals

an even bigger surprise.

This is a huge heart.

He has a tremendously enlarged heart, very thickened wall.

This is [inaudible].

It looks like a cardiomyopathy.

It's a disease of the muscle of the heart, usually--

probably genetic.

NARRATOR The full name of the condition

is hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.

Normally, the walls of the heart are thin and pliable.

But the muscles surrounding Luis' left ventricle

is abnormally thick, often reducing the volume of blood

ejected with each contraction.

It's a defect that places him at risk

of severe cardiac arrhythmia and cardiac arrest.

During a spell of arrhythmia, the heart

can b*at dangerously slow, fast, or a combination of both.

Eventually, you can die suddenly from it.

You shouldn't have a heart that weighs grams.

And it shouldn't have that left ventricle as thick as-- almost

centimeters thick.

And so he definitely has some problems.

NARRATOR Was it a heart att*ck and not

a highway wreck that put this young man in the morgue?

Coming up next, Dr. G confirms that Luis Ray

was a medical time b*mb bound down accident alley.

Which disease, if any, got to him first?
[ … ]

This guy was running away from the grim reaper,

because one of those was eventually gonna get him.

NARRATOR When "Dr. G, Medical Examiner" continues.

Tox is here.

I'll be right back.

Hey, Rhonda.

NARRATOR At AM, the toxicology

report of -year-old Luis Ray arrives at the morgue.

With the autopsy complete, Dr. G has surprisingly

found none of the major trauma typically

associated with a violent rollover auto accident.

Now, she's trying to determine which

of Luis' growing list of natural ailments

might have ultimately taken his life?

Perhaps the toxicology report will

confirm everyone's original hypothesis

and solve the mystery.

Thought she would find that the subject

had been consuming alcohol at the time of the accident.

NARRATOR Dr. G scans the report for the line item for alcohol.

It reads negative.

But for an illegal substance, the reading is positive.

It's cocaine.

And unlike alcohol, whose effects

depend on its level in the blood, any amount of cocaine

can be toxic.

Cocaine is pretty unpredictable.

You can die with really low levels.

You could have the same level one week

and then that same level the following week could k*ll you.

NARRATOR And in the case of Luis Ray,

cocaine could be particularly dangerous.

I'll tell you, a guy with a big heart,

with a cardiomyopathy, the last thing he needs is cocaine.

Because cocaine is arrhythmogenic

in and of itself, meaning it could

precipitate heart arrhythmias.

The guy's already got a heart that

could have an arrhythmia at any time and he's taking cocaine.

It's a shame he didn't notice.

NARRATOR There is a strong possibility

that the cocaine induced an att*ck of arrhythmia.

But that att*ck was probably not fatal.

I'm gonna be a little suspect that I an-- an arrhythmia--

sudden arrhythmia probably isn't gonna be his cause of death.

NARRATOR Still, even a nonlethal arrhythmia

could've easily caused Luis to lose

consciousness behind the wheel.

A heart condition aggravated by cocaine use.

Dr. G may have zeroed in on a cause for the accident,

though not for the death itself.

But knowing what she knows now, she

revisits her autopsy findings.

I go back to the very-- one of the very first things I saw,

the petechiae.

NARRATOR Petechiae is the classic symptom that the victim

has been choked to death.

In the course of the rollover accident,

could Lewis have somehow been strangled?

At the time they brought the body

in with my investigative report, they had hinted that his body

was in a strange position.

I really had to reconfirm that.

NARRATOR Unfortunately, there are

no photographs of the wreck.

I would've liked a picture.

I would've liked to have been there to see it.

It's not a perfect world.

I have to take the word of the first responding officer.

NARRATOR Fortunately, the trooper

was very clear on this detail in her final report.

The memorable aspect of this case

was actually the position of the subject,

because I had never worked an accident

involving a subject coming to rest in that position.

DR. G (VOICEOVER) His body was very contorted.

His face was pressed up against a seat.

Working with the police findings to recreate the exact position

of the body in the overturned trunk,

Dr. G finally hits on a potential k*ller.

It's something called positional asphyxia.

Positional is the position of your body.

And asphyxia means you're not getting enough oxygen.

And you're not getting enough oxygen, because your body is

in a position that it can't breathe, whether it's trapped

and the chest can't expand or it's

blocking your nose and mouth.

In this case, I think it's a combination.

NARRATOR Dr. G's ruling on the ultimate cause

of death, a form of suffocation called positional asphyxia.

Now, she can see how a deadly succession of natural disease,

poor choices, and a twist of fate

led directly to Luis Ray's tragic end

on a lonely stretch of Texas highway.

Luis used cocaine sometime before climbing into his truck

and driving home.

He is unaware that he suffers from a congenital heart

condition called hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.

The drug helps to trigger the onset of cardiac arrhythmia.

DR. G (VOICEOVER) His heart starts
[ … ]

going into abnormal b*at, maybe b*ating too fast.

It's not enough to k*ll him, but it's

enough to maybe temporarily cause

the blood pressure to go down.

He doesn't get enough blood to his brain

and he maybe passes out.

NARRATOR Pilotless, the truck drifts across the highway

and over the shoulder, until he jumps a block of cement.

It went airborne, completely flipped.

And those pickups were pretty-- pretty good such trucks.

And he landed on his roof, upside down.

And he kind of skidded for about, I'd say,

to yards from when he hit.

NARRATOR Although he's not buckled in,

Luis miraculously survived the crash with no more

than a few scratches.

So far, his luck has been extraordinary,

but it's about to run out.

He's still unconscious and contorted

in a position in which his airway was closed

and his chest constricted from being able to inflate.

He couldn't get enough oxygen, because he

no longer could breathe.

He couldn't expand his chest or get oxygen

from the position of his mouth.

And he couldn't move, because he was entrapped in there.

He dies from that lack of oxygen in that he can't breathe,

because of the position of his body.

NARRATOR Every Saturday in a big city morgue

brings another round of traffic fatalities

from the night before.

The sheer volume would be numbing, if it were

not for the attendant tragedy.

But death is never strictly routine,

as in the mysterious, multi-layered case of Luis Rey.

Death was knocking on this man's door with his heart,

with him using cocaine with his heart,

with his tumor that was gonna get him.

I mean, the poor guy.

The fact that he's only and he's already

got a cancer in his kidneys, he's

got a horrible cardiomyopathy, he's taking cocaine,

the only thing this man avoided was bad internal injuries.

And then, he gets crushed by his truck.

I mean, this guy was running away from the grim reaper,

because one of those was eventually gonna get him.

NARRATOR Coming up next, Dr. G investigates

the death of a young man found dead in the Texan desert.

We did get a lot of drug-related

deaths out of Webb County.

And they usually have b*llet holes in them.

NARRATOR When "Dr. G, Medical Examiner" continues.

In Dr. G's morgue, autopsy is biography.

So s*ab wound.

So we got autopsy on that.

NARRATOR Each body tells an intriguing story

of a life fully lived or tragically cut short,

of the famous or the unknown.

But they don't use dr*gs.

NARRATOR This is one place where everyone

gets the A-list treatment.

DR. G (VOICEOVER) When you're naked and on my slab,

I can't tell what your status in life was.

I don't care what your nationality is.

If you have d*ed in the jurisdiction that I cover for,

we-- we're gonna need to find out why you d*ed.

We-- we're gonna need to find out that foul play did not

come your way.

NARRATOR In the sun-drenched badlands

of Texas, near the Mexican border,

three young men are on foot.

This area sees more than its share of untimely death.

Indeed, one of the three will not

reach their destination alive.

The following day, a ranch hand is driving down

a lonely stretch of Highway .

Suddenly, two men break through the brush and wave him over.

They tell the driver that they have a friend in distress

and lead the man to a nearby deer hunter's blind.

Inside, he makes a grim discovery, the decaying

body of a young man.

As he calls , the two men flee into the surrounding bush.

Presumably, they have something to hide from the authorities.

But there is now no one to tell who this man is or how he d*ed,

questions that will now have to be somehow answered in the San

Antonio morgue of Dr. G.

DR. G (VOICEOVER) Got a -year-old gentleman

that was found in a deer blind.

He's coming in from a rural county,

Webb County, which is where Laredo is,

which is on the border of Mexico.

We don't know exactly why he's in a deer blind.

Got a bag for you to check out here.

NARRATOR In the victim's knapsack,

police find a bag of pills identified as dipyrone.

A Mexican-made pain medication, dipyrone

is banned in the United States.

Its use has been linked to sometimes

fatal health complications.

Other than the pills, there isn't much to go on.
[ … ]

His only possessions are pretty much

the clothes on his back and a little bag

of cookies and a wallet in his back pocket with an ID

from Mexico.

NARRATOR The identification card gives a name and an age.

Benedicto Ramos was just years old.

The hardest part of these, actually,

is trying to get next of kin.

Somebody knows him.

Somebody's got to let his loved ones know that he's dead.

NARRATOR One fact is certain, the location where the body was

found, Webb County, one of the harshest,

most dangerous counties in Texas north of the Mexican border.

We have a case coming in from Webb County, you're like, oh.

You cringe.

NARRATOR This is a region funded by so-called mules

and coyotes, those who transport dr*gs

and illegal immigrants over the border.

We did get a lot of drug-related

deaths out of Webb County.

And they usually have b*llet holes in them.

You don't get sh*t once in Webb County.

You get sh*t times.

NARRATOR But this doesn't have the usual look

of a drug-related death.

DR. G (VOICEOVER) A guy using dr*gs, a guy running dr*gs,

doesn't carry a bag of cookies with him.

Doesn't-- doesn't mark the soles of his

tennis shoes black so people can't see him at night.

NARRATOR Dr. G's formal examination now begins.

As always, she first looks for signs of external trauma.

He is a slight man, foot, , pounds.

And he's starting to decompose.

He's starting to get a little bit bloated and a little bit

of skin discoloration.

NARRATOR The decayed condition of the body

makes for a more difficult examination,

also, an unpleasant one.

I don't mind the smell at all.

But I don't like to smell like the guy.

And I have hairspray on my hair, believe it or not.

And I-- it'll really stick.

So I don't want to smell like him.

So we're gonna try to cover up, so

that it doesn't smell as bad--

for me, so I don't smell as bad.

NARRATOR As the body begins to decompose,

the internal buildup of gases causes the body to swell.

Chemicals are released, which turn

the skin a blue-green color.

And parasites are starting to consume the tissues.

DR. G (VOICEOVER) He was just early,

like, insect activity, little maggots on his neck,

starting to get some greenish discoloration.

Still could see the skin quite well.

Very tense, firm skin.

That's what you see from the bloating.

That gas has formed from the bacteria in the body

and start bloating it.

NARRATOR The challenge for Dr. G

is to look past the distortion caused by the decomposition

while checking it for wounds or other signs

of a violent demise.

No indication that he's strangled.

His neck looks pretty good.

I don't see any trauma to the anterior neck.

OK.

This is [inaudible].

So we don't really see--

I don't see any trauma on him.

NARRATOR The external exam seems

to rule out death by strangulation, sh**ting,

or other related injuries.

But sometimes, signs of foul play

can only be discovered during the internal exam.

So we're gonna have to look internal,

look on the inside for trauma.

NARRATOR Did the elicit dipyrone pills found

in his body cause his death?

Or was there some other danger that befell Benedicto Ramos

in the Texas rangeland, that his two companions somehow escaped?"], index ,…}

Even though he's relatively young, from what

we can tell, you know, we--

there are things that can happen to you out there.

Get an infection or just even have some kind

of inherent heart disease.

NARRATOR Coming up next, the autopsy reveals

what happened to Benedicto.

Something that shouldn't have happened to someone of his age.

He's dead right there and he's only .

-year-olds shouldn't die.

NARRATOR When "Dr. G, Medical Examiner" continues.

Like a blurred photograph, a partly decomposed body

lies in Dr. G's morgue.

She's looking past the effects of decay

to bring the man's moment of death into sharp focus.

Very green.

NARRATOR The remains of -year-old Benedicto Ramos

were recovered from a hunter's blind near the Mexican border.

It's an area known for drug trafficking and
[ … ]

illegal immigrant crossings.

Will opening up the body reveal the elusive cause of death?

The usual Y incision to expose the internal organs

brings a blast of noxious air.

I was opening him and a rush of gas came out.

Could you hold this up for me, Dave?

He's got some decomp fluid in his pleural cavities.

But pretty much everything else is intact, just a little

softer than I'd normally see.

NARRATOR Each organ is removed and carefully weighed,

cross-sectioned, and evaluated.

DR. G (VOICEOVER) There's just not much you can see.

I don't see evidence of infection.

And I don't see any natural disease.

NARRATOR She proceeds to the man's head.

The skull cap is removed.

And the brain inside is inspected for possible

bruising, bruising which might've

been caused by a possible blow to the head or a fall.

There's no trauma on him.

Skull's fined.

His brain's very soft, from the decomposition, but no evidence

of internal trauma.

NARRATOR So far, all her tests have come up negative.

And Dr. G is positively stumped.

He's dead right there and he's only .

-year-olds shouldn't die.

NARRATOR Her field investigator has, meanwhile,

had better luck.

He's managed to track down the man's next of kin in Mexico.

The story they tell is a familiar one.

Benedicto Ramos was an otherwise law-abiding young man who chose"], index ,…}

to enter America illegally.

These are the poor guys coming in for a better life,

trying to come under the radar, trying

to escape authorities just because they don't want

to be caught and sent back.

They just want a job.

They want to live here.

NARRATOR This could explain why the dead man's two companions

vanished before police arrived.

They didn't want to be deported as illegal immigrants.

It also helps to account for the pills.

Although banned in the US, dipyrone is a legal pain

medication in Mexico.

And according to the toxicology report,

levels found in his blood were not lethal.

Having ruled out foul play, trauma,

dr*gs, and natural disease, Dr. G

is left with few alternatives.

But given Benedicto's long journey

on foot in the Texas sun, she now has a hunch what it is.

Just the-- the process of being out there in the heat,

trying to get a-- you know, trying to walk.

He either d*ed from heat stroke or dehydration

or a combination of both.

NARRATOR Dehydration is severe fluid loss

through sweating and urination.

If the water is not replenished, sodium and potassium

rise to toxic levels, resulting in cramping,

nausea, debilitating headaches, and, finally, coma.

But death by dehydration is one of the hardest things

to prove during autopsy, because there

is usually little fluid left in the body for testing purposes.

DR. G The aorta, pulmonary artery, [inaudible],,

they're all just filled with air.

I can't get any blood.

On a live person, they can easily draw blood and check

for the sodium, check for the blood urea nitrogen

that go-- that can go up with dehydration.

I can't do that in somebody who's dead,

particularly somebody who's starting to decompose.

NARRATOR Her only resort is to examine the bladder.

Normally, the organ would have some trace of fluid.

But when she looks inside, she finds it bone dry.

This negative finding is key in Dr. G's investigation.

His bladder is empty, then he's

probably running out of water.

We can kind of put it together.

It's probably dehydration in this case,

because of the temperature of when he's crossing

and the fact is that he's got no urine.

NARRATOR Dr. G is now confident enough in the evidence

to make a ruling.

And the story of the last days of Benedicto Ramos

can finally be replayed.

Benedicto and his two compadres are among the thousands

of poor Mexicans lured northward by the prosperity

of the United States.

Slipping across the border had been relatively easy.

Getting across the unforgiving frontier on foot,

that was very dangerous, even for a young man in good health.

They're coming across the river

and then they're having to walk through these--

through these ranches.

And these ranches are just hundreds

and thousands of acres.

That rural area right along the border

that they got to get across, it doesn't

take long to get dehydrated.
[ … ]

NARRATOR Every hour that Benedicto

hikes in the triple digit heat, he sweats off to quarts

of fluid.

All three men are dehydrated.

But Benedicto is the first to experience

full blown symptoms, excessive thirst, dizziness, nausea.

As Benedicto loses strength, the three men

come across a deer blind, the only shelter for many miles.

And they thought that would be a good place to sleep probably.

I mean, it sounds good to me.

Probably helped them up there thinking, if he just rested,

he'd be OK.

NARRATOR But what seems to be a deep sleep is actually a coma.

The little remaining fluid in his body

is being diverted to his most vital organs.

By the time the other two men wake, Benedicto is dead.

[interposing voices]

They flag down a truck to let somebody know what happened,

a last act of kindness for their compadre.

They have some compassion that their buddy's dead and nobody's

gonna find out for a long time.

NARRATOR This one victim is a voice for many more.

In the year , there were deaths

from exposure in the borderlands,

despite government efforts to dissuade people

from the deadly crossing.

I have the labels.

NARRATOR Dr. G's morgue is remote from the inner workings

of government agencies.

What she sees are the personal tragedies, the people

like Benedicto Ramos.

DR. G (VOICEOVER) Is there some way

we can get these guys either not to come across

or to help them come across?

But letting them just individually die like this,

it's just really sad.

And it seems like we can come up with some way to prevent this.

NARRATOR Coming up next, see what it's like to be one of Dr.

G's medical investigators.

Always wash your hands when you get back with a body.

NARRATOR When "Dr. G, Medical Examiner" continues.

In Orlando, Florida, when a person dies and the death

is under the jurisdiction of the District Nine

medical examiner's office, the first person

dispatched to the scene is the death investigator.

Got a black male, probably been

dead about three or four days.

NARRATOR But their work is unlike any TV

drama would portray it.

He is a big dork.

NARRATOR It's strenuous, tedious,

and can be very unpleasant.

Do I smell Vicks?

You little wussies.

NARRATOR These are the men, and woman, who makeup Dr. G's

team of Death Investigators.

In the District Nine morgue, there are

eight full time investigators.

Each year, they're involved in at least half

of the , cases that are handled by the morgue,

about four to five bodies a day.

Just want to let you know, PD's working

a -year-old white male.

-year-old woman that lives by herself in a trailer.

Medical investigators are key to the practice

of forensic pathology.

You have to have somebody else to be helping you.

I need my investigator to be my eyes and ears,

take pictures, and follow up on the information I need.

STEVE HANSON (VOICEOVER) They tell the newspaper people,

you've got to look for the who, what, when, where, how,

and why.

It's the same thing that we're doing.

We're trying to get that information.

NARRATOR An investigator's number one priority

is to investigate the surroundings and circumstances

of the fatality.

Get out to the scene and first thing

we'll do is check in with the law enforcement official,

be it the patrol officer or the sergeant or the detective.

They'll be able to tell us what the circumstances were,

how the body was discovered.

With most medical examiner's office,

the scene is the jurisdiction of the police.

But the body is our jurisdiction.

They cannot touch the body.

They cannot move the body.

And so they will go there, get the information

of what is known by the police.

And then, we can then examine the body and look for what

kind of trauma there is.

There's no trauma.

He got out of the hospital a month ago.

The manager's the one that called LPD?

Yeah.

DR. G (VOICEOVER) All that information has to be gathered.

Because that helps me figure out why he d*ed.

NARRATOR An investigator will also record the time of death,

if known, the temperature of the body and air,

as well as the weather.
[ … ]

What they will not do, however, is use any lasers.

Remember, you're talking about two different things now.

We're not CSI.

We're the medical examiner's office.

I guess if we wanted to point to something,

we could use a laser.

But we haven't done that yet.

NARRATOR Before the body is moved or touched in any way,

an investigator must extensively photograph the body

and its location from multiple angles and distances

to create a permanent visual record of the death scene.

STEVE HANSON (VOICEOVER) What was around the body?

How was the body involved with the scene itself?

Are there factors at the scene that influenced the--

the death?

Are there factors that could've been responsible

for some of the pattern injuries that you're seeing on the body?"], index ,…}

NARRATOR An investigator may take

up to pictures at a scene.

And most investigators now use digital cameras.

Photos are key.

If I've not-- I don't have time--

if I have six bodies in a day, I can't go to six scenes.

And I don't know, oftentimes, how important things are

at the scene until I see the body

and I-- and I examine the body.

Seven days a week, hours a day.

Somebody's got to take that call.

We can't wait til business hours to go pick up a body

and figure out what happened.

Investigations.

Jack speaking.

NARRATOR But sometimes no matter how much

training or experience, the most difficult challenge

facing the medical investigator can

simply be picking up the phone.

The child is in the backseat?

Been there all day?

Thank you, kind sir.

STEVE HANSON (VOICEOVER) You see this stuff on TV

and you read about it in books and we

deal with it on a daily basis.

And obviously, I've been doing this for a long time,

as well as a lot of the other investigators in our office.

We've learned how to deal with it.

But it's-- it still takes a toll on you.