Posted on Sun, Oct. 01, 2006

email this

print this

reprint or license this

IN MY OPINION

Nurse background serves new coroner well

Former ER worker volunteered to examine sexual assault victims

DAN HUNTLEY

Seven years ago, a piece of junk mail changed Sabrina Gast's life.

A registered nurse and pregnant with her second child, she saw a flyer for a free nurses' training session in Columbia sponsored by the S.C. Coalition Against Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault.

"I had worked as an emergency room nurse but was looking for something else and I thought, `Why not?' " said Gast, who was appointed last week by Gov. Mark Sanford as York County's interim coroner.

The Columbia training session led to two years of volunteer work with the Rock Hill Police Department's sexual assault victims' program. In 2001, she became director of the Sexual Assault Nurse Examiners' Program, where she recruited other nurses to work with the program. The sexual assault program worked 67 rape cases in 2005.

The program included doing the initial assessment of a rape victim -- taking information, collecting evidence and providing documentation for the police and solicitor's office. Although the program was based in Rock Hill, it serves the entire county.

"It was a 24-7 job where we'd have someone on call at all times. I think law enforcement recognized the critical nature of dealing with these victims in a timely, effective and sensitive fashion," said Gast, 36.

Gast's office dealt extensively with local law enforcement officials and through that experience she became increasingly interested in forensic science. And that led to enrolling at Duquesne University in a master's program of forensic nursing; she has a bachelor's degree in nursing from Clemson University.

She said she was already interested in running for the coroner's office in November 2008 last spring before Doug McKown was indicted on drug charges and suspended from office. Gast's appointment will last until McKown is either acquitted -- and returns to office -- or he is convicted. She plans to run even if McKown returns to office.

She said that McKown called her the week she was appointed and congratulated her on her appointment.

She started work Sept. 20 and did not have to wait long for her first call, which came at 3:30 a.m. It was about the 400th death of the year.

"Middle-of-the-night phone calls come with the job; I was expecting it," she said.

Before she left her Fort Mill home that morning, she set two alarm clocks to make sure her husband, John, would get up in time to get their children -- Josh, 9, and Jordan, 7 -- to school on time.

She says her children are curious about her new job.

"We believe that when children are old enough to ask questions, they're old enough to be told," she said. "What I told them before was that Mommy helped people who were hurt. Now I tell them what I do -- I help the families of people who have died."

Gast laughs when asked about the glamorous life of death investigators celebrated on TV shows such as CSI -- she says rock music does not start blaring when she looks into a microscope at the county morgue.

"It can be exciting, sure, but it's not like on television when they get instant answers or that one person does most everything," she said.

Gast said the reality is that a team of specialists gather information at a death scene, and the evidence is bagged and sent off to another team of specialists at the State Law Enforcement Division in Columbia.

"And you might not get the evidence back for three to four months," she said.

Gast said she's blessed with a good staff who has been helping her find her way in the new job. The coroner's office is located on the second floor of the old York County Courthouse. The staff consists of chief deputy assistant coroner David Chambers, and three assistants -- Ev Amick, Johnny Love and Butch Lindsay; Sadie Culp is the office manager and Wendy Bailey is the case manager.

Gov. Sanford's office said he appointed Gast on the basis of recommendations from York County Sheriff Bruce Bryant and 16th Circuit Solicitor Tommy Pope. In a letter signed by Bryant and Pope, they said Gast's "work ethic, her compassion for victims and her ability to build coalitions among diverse groups would make her a tremendous success in any field of public service."

IN MY OPINION Dan Huntley