ORLANDO, Fla. – Orange County's new chief medical examiner spent his Saturday conducting autopsies on seven people brought into the Orange County Medical Examiner's Office.
Among them was singer Christina Grimme, the former contestant of "The Voice," who was gunned down by a fan following her concert at Orlando's Plaza Live.
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Early Sunday morning, Dr. Joshua Stephany was awakened by a phone call alerting him to mass casualties at the Pulse nightclub.
"The original number that came in was 11, maybe 12," said Stephany.
When the medical examiner arrived at the nightclub around sunrise, it quickly became apparent the job would be much larger than his office could handle alone.
"My first response was we've got to ask the governor for a declaration of a state of emergency," said Stephany.
That declaration allowed Stephany to call in the Florida Emergency Mortuary Operations Response System (FEMORS), a statewide network of medical examiners that could assist with identifying victims and conducting autopsies.
"Families are going to start calling immediately," said Stephany, who vowed to return the 49 deceased victims to their loved ones within just a few days. "I knew it could be done. It would be difficult, but I knew it could be done."
The medical examiner's first task was to transport the victims to his office and identify them.
In some cases, the deceased were identified using driver's licenses found in their pockets or near their bodies. Others names were determined through fingerprints.
To assist in the identification, FEMORS set up a phone bank within hours of the shooting.
Descriptive information about the victims provided by family members was entered into a database.
"What was your loved one wearing? Did they have any tattoos? Did they have any piercings?" Stephany said.
Once the victims were identified, Stephany and six other medical examiners began conducting legally-required autopsies.
"We have to document the injuries," said Stephany. "Entrance wounds, exit wounds, patterns and procure evidence."
Out of respect to the victims and their families, the body of gunman Omar Mateen was stored in a cooler in a different building at the medical examiner's complex.
Stephany has served as an associate medical examiner in Orange County since 2007. After the retirement of former chief medical examiner Dr. Jan Garavaglia in 2015, Stephany has overseen the office in an interim capacity.
On Tuesday, Stephany was formally hired as Orange-Osceola chief medical examiner, a decision that had been made prior to the Pulse nightclub shooting. Since Stephany was busy conducting autopsies, he was unable to attend the announcement at an Orange County Commission meeting.
"I did not want to leave here until I made sure everyone was here and secure," said Stephany, who managed to identify all 49 victims within 48 hours of the shooting. All autopsies were complete within 72 hours, he said.
"It was very important for me to do it as quickly and efficiently as possible and not sidestep anything," said the medical examiner. "At that point, our main job was to reunite the individuals with their loved ones."
Despite being part of the investigation into America's deadliest mass shooting, Stephany said he's tried to keep his emotions from impacting his grim work.
"I didn't watch TV, so I couldn't really grasp how it was affecting the nation and just how big it was," said Stephany.
FEMORS steps into help after Pulse massacre
Dr. Jason Byrd, the commander of FEMORS, spoke with News4Jax Thursday at UF Health in Gainesville about the group of 40 volunteers who stepped in to help after the shooting in Orlando.
While it was difficult, Byrd said they put everything else aside to focus on their work, supporting and giving answers to hurting families.
"At first, the information was possibly 12. That went to 20, then 30, then 40," Byrd said.
Once the volunteers arrived in Orlando, their main assignments were to man the call center and contact families to get information.
"That person, who the day before was a stranger, was now welcomed into that family group and helped them through the grieving process. And when you can provide that type of support to grieving family members, that's one very critical aspect of the FEMORS program.
The next request was to help staff the morgue so staff at the Medical Examiner's Office could go to the scene. FEMORS members worked to identify the victims as quickly as possible.
"When a set of human remains comes into the morgue, a FEMORS person is assigned to that individual. They stay with that individual through the process. They are never left alone while they are in the morgue. So they are watched and under secure surveillance until the funeral home or the family, as they desire, actually comes and picks up that family member," Byrd said.
The group is always on standby to help families through one of the most difficult times of their lives.
Byrd said they had teams like theirs from around the country offering to help. He said he was just overwhelmed by the national response.