Partnering with colleague up the coast, Beaufort County coroner wins statewide accolade
Outgoing Beaufort County Coroner David Ott received a statewide honor this month for his long-term teamwork with a colleague up the coast. Their project aims to standardize practices in coroner’s offices across the state and allow for the sharing of resources in case of a regional disaster.
Ott received the Barrett Lawrimore Memorial Regional Cooperation Award along with Charleston County Coroner Bobbi Jo O’Neal. Presented through the South Carolina Association of Counties, the award honors inter-municipal projects that “represent the best qualities of local governance” such as using tax dollars efficiently and improving residents’ quality of life, according to the organization’s website.
As coroners of two of the biggest population centers on the South Carolina coast, Ott and O’Neal recognize the importance of being prepared for natural disasters or other mass fatality events. As part of their project, they allowed data to be easily shared between the two offices and secured more than $1 million in grant funding for new machinery, which is also available for use by neighboring counties.
The new equipment in the two offices was the first of its kind in South Carolina. A newly installed $500K digital scanner in Beaufort County has replaced the coroner’s manual X-ray procedure and gets the job done in seconds. Outsourcing toxicology analysis to Charleston usually takes weeks of waiting, but a microwave-sized machine in the Port Royal office can now yield results in 30 minutes.
Sharing these resources would be necessary during a mass casualty event that impacts large portions of the state, according to Ott. If natural disasters like hurricanes or tornadoes wipe out coroner or medical facilities in one county, officials could lean on other counties for help.
“It’s not if it happens — it’s when it happens,” Ott said of a disastrous event that might necessitate collaboration between county coroners. “We might not get hit by a hurricane, but we’re gonna get hit by tornadoes. So we are ready to move forward with the sharing of each of our offices, and we look forward to sharing our facilities with agencies throughout South Carolina.”
Boasting nearly half a century in public service, Ott recently announced his retirement after about 15 years with the Beaufort County Coroner’s Office. The 2024 coroner of the year is passing the baton to his Chief Deputy Coroner Debbie Youmans, who is running unopposed in the Nov. 5 general election. His final day on the job will be in early January.
Upon taking office, Youmans plans to expand the efforts that Ott began.
“We’re as good as what we learn and what we’re taught,” she said. “Any way to help or assist another county — that’s a win-win.”
Ott and O’Neal are also encouraging their colleagues across the state to adopt the same data management software so information can be standardized and easily shared across county lines. Easy access to overdose numbers is especially vital so officials can be proactive in fighting the opioid epidemic that affects every corner of South Carolina, O’Neal said.
“The important part for the citizens is that the data that comes out of coroners’ offices impacts public health policy, criminal justice policy, emergency planning,” O’Neal said, emphasizing the importance of accurate and up-to-date data. “That will dictate the kind of policy that’s coming from the state and then federally, and so that impacts all of our pocketbooks.”
After submitting an application for the award in August, Ott and O’Neal appeared before a panel of judges in September to deliver a presentation on the project. They received their first-place trophies at the SCAC awards luncheon Oct. 17.
“We actually started doing this project unknowingly,” Ott said. He and O’Neal had worked together on bettering their offices’ practices since both were elected coroner in 2020. After learning of the collaboration award, they realized their existing efforts fit into the contest’s criteria.
This marked the third straight year that Beaufort County was among the recipients of the Barrett Lawrimore award. In 2023, local first responders received the honor alongside Aiken, Barnwell, Dorchester and Hampton counties for their collective response to a three-day raging fire at the Barnwell County landfill. The year before, Beaufort County was recognized for its collaboratively written manual on stormwater management practices.
“The way we take care of those who died is really paramount,” O’Neal told The Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette. “And on a broader scope, the quality of a death investigation should not be based on the wealth or size of a jurisdiction. Somebody who died in a small county — Jasper or Hampton or Colleton or wherever — they should have the same quality of investigation as somebody in Charleston or Beaufort.”
This story was originally published October 29, 2024 at 1:24 PM.
