The close ties between coroners and law enforcement have fueled an unusual and unregulated industry: for-profit forensic examinations. Katrina Eisinge

The Police Called It An Accident. She Turned to 1-800-Autopsy.

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2021-07-11 14:30:03

The close ties between coroners and law enforcement have fueled an unusual and unregulated industry: for-profit forensic examinations.

Katrina Eisinger, Christopher Eisinger’s mother, at home in Lake Forest, Calif. Credit... Bethany Mollenkof for The New York Times

Katrina Eisinger awoke early one morning in March 2018 to a phone call from West Anaheim Medical Center in Orange County, Calif. “We have your son here,” the voice said, instructing her to come right away. It was still dark outside, and Katrina changed out of her nightgown, pulled on workout clothes and rushed to the hospital. Her son, 35-year-old Christopher Eisinger, was in a coma. She looked at the tubes attached to his body. She saw what looked like blood in one of them. A former X-ray tech and pharmaceutical sales representative, Katrina noticed the urine in another tube was brown and thought his kidneys were shutting down. His right eye was swollen.

No one could tell her exactly what happened to him. Katrina learned that Christopher had been dropped off by an ambulance after an incident involving the Anaheim Police Department. “We don’t know how long he was without oxygen,” a nurse told her. At some point before he arrived, Christopher’s pulse stopped. After intubation, it came back with an irregular beat. Now he was in respiratory failure.

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