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When survivors of sexual assault arrive at a hospital, medical personnel provide care, and typically conduct a forensic exam using what is commonly called a rape kit in order to preserve evidence. The technology used can vary. In Ohio, some advocates hope a new type of camera will help survivors. The Ohio Newsroom's Kendall Crawford reports.
KENDALL CRAWFORD, BYLINE: The hospital system in Central Ohio is called OhioHealth. Its emergency departments have been using a combination of different technologies as a part of their sexual assault kits. Some nurses had to juggle a handheld digital camera and a blacklight to conduct those exams. Some used the same bulky technology used by OB-GYNs for Pap smears. It wasn't standard, and it wasn't seamless, says Terra Purdy, the manager of the hospital system's sexual violence services.
TERRA PURDY: And some of these exams - I mean, they can take up to five or six hours.
CRAWFORD: But now, those nurses have gotten a major upgrade to the tools they use. It's a camera built specifically for forensics, and Purdy says it will make examinations faster and less invasive.
PURDY: Survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence - they've already gone through something horrific. And when they come into the emergency department, we don't want to retraumatize them.
CRAWFORD: The camera, known as the Cortexflo, is fitted with a ring light so that photographs of injuries are clearer. It has a lens that can focus and zoom in on specific areas, something Purdy says was tough to do with the old cameras. And it has a built-in blue light that can detect traces of fluids like saliva and semen. A contrast filter enhances important details.
PURDY: So it can show scratches or bruises or fingerprints that would be almost impossible to catch with a handheld camera.
CRAWFORD: Not every survivor of sexual assault will go on to pursue a criminal case. But for those that do, the more precise the evidence, the better, says Stephanie Scalise, managing attorney with the Ohio Alliance to End Sexual Violence. With experience as both a prosecutor and a defense attorney, she sees the upgraded cameras as an extremely helpful tool for ensuring justice.
STEPHANIE SCALISE: Anytime that we can capture more evidence, anytime that we can have more ways of ferreting out the truth - whatever the truth may really be - is always valuable not only to survivors, but to society and our community as a whole.
CRAWFORD: Besides Ohio, the cameras are used in more than 600 locations in the U.S. and internationally. But the International Association of Forensic Nurses say the cost, at around $25,000 for each camera, is hard for many hospital systems to afford. And Scalise says there's going to be a learning curve for the court system. For instance, judges will need to grasp exactly what the camera's contrast filters do.
SCALISE: I think that you're going to need some type of testimony, at least at the beginning of using it, to explain why that is not changing the evidence, why that might be making it easier to see but is not creating something that wasn't there.
CRAWFORD: Whether or not there's a trial, Scalise says these higher-quality photos can help survivors better understand what happened to them.
Michelle Yeasting, a certified forensic nurse and mother of sexual assault survivors, understands the power of these kits firsthand. After they were abused, her daughters felt isolated until the result of a sexual assault kit confirmed the identity of a suspect and empowered them to speak out.
MICHELLE YEASTING: To have some - a technology that says, here, I told you, I told you that this happened to me. A bruise or a thumb print or something to say, yes, this happened to me.
CRAWFORD: Advocates like Yeasting say that's a win because the cameras not only provide higher-quality evidence, they also make the collection of it easier for people who have survived such a traumatic experience.
For NPR News, I'm Kendall Crawford in Cincinnati. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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