18 Heads Found at O'Hare Airport, Chicago

DiamondSmiles · #1 ● 01-16-2013, 03:36 AM

By Stefano Esposito Staff Reporter
Updated: January 15, 2013 8:13PM

The 18 human heads that arrived at O’Hare International Airport just before Christmas — and remained there until this week — now appear to be on the last leg of their final journey.

The medical specimens had been in limbo since just before Christmas, when they arrived on a flight from Rome and were held up because of improper paperwork, said Mary Paleologos, a spokeswoman with the Cook County medical examiner’s office, whose office took custody of the heads this week.

chefbob09 · #2 ● 01-16-2013, 06:18 AM

first, for the first time ever

**kellyhound** · #3 ● 01-16-2013, 06:58 AM

Turns out the heads were used for medical research in Italy and were being returned for cremation in Illinois. The holdup was due to a paperwork problem.

It just so happens such shipments are commonplace, and heads — quite a few of them — crisscross the globe via airplane and delivery truck.

"Just last week, we transported eight heads, unembalmed, to Rush University Medical Center for an ophthalmology program," said Paul Dudek, director of the Anatomical Gift Association of Illinois, which supplies cadavers and body parts to medical schools in the state for training students.

His association sends about 450 whole cadavers to medical schools each year and also ships individual body parts, including about a dozen shipments of heads annually.

The heads are used for training in fields such as dentistry, ophthalmology and neurology, where they are used for Alzheimer's research. They are also used to train plastic surgeons and by students learning to perform facial reconstructions on accident and trauma victims, Dudek said.

Most cadavers are obtained through voluntary donation by people who designate a willingness to have their bodies benefit science upon their death, Dudek said. A much smaller proportion are the bodies of people whose families could not afford their burial and so agree to allow the state to release them for research.

The shipment to O'Hare was properly preserved, wrapped and labeled "human specimens," said Mary Paleologos, a spokeswoman for the Cook County Medical Examiner's Office, which took hold of the shipment on Monday for storage in its morgue cooler while authorities continued to investigate the paperwork.

With little information initially, news of the shipment's discovery fueled headlines and raised questions about where the shipment came from, where it was headed and why.

In the end, it turned out the shipment of three containers, which arrived in mid-December, was held up because of a mix-up with the paperwork and there was nothing suspicious about it or its destination.