[sirens blaring]
NARRATOR: In a post-9/11 world, the field
of forensic science has become more
urgent and important than ever.
Deaths related to global terrorism have spiked.
And in 2015 alone, more than 29,000 people
were killed as a result of terrorist attacks.
The pervasive threat of mass casualty terror attacks
demands new innovations in forensics,
especially when it comes to how we investigate
large-scale blast sites.
Samples of these could be taken
and sent for DNA analysis.
NARRATOR: Kim Moran is an instructor at Arcadia
University who works with FBI agents, police, bomb squads,
and forensic scientists on how to best respond
to the aftermath of a bombing.
When a blast happens, it's so important
to be able to identify all the victims that
are involved so that we can return those
remains back to the family.
In terms of personal effects, people wear very kind
of easily-to-distinguish jewelry,
so this could really help identify the individual.
NARRATOR: Debris from a blast can also
be used to identify the perpetrator,
a crucial first step in identifying any links
to terror organizations.
But before this evidence gets to the lab,
it has to be collected in the field.
And training for that is where the challenges
of living in a radically new world
lead to some radical new solutions.
[music playing]
I've come to Pennsylvania to shadow Kim as she takes
students through her unorthodox approach
to learning the intricacies of post-blast investigation.
We're in a parking lot, and a group of students
are dressing dead animals up behind us.
What's happening?
We have a bus today where we're sending a charge,
and we have a number of passengers on that vehicle.
We can't use human cadavers.
Yes.
And this is our next best thing,
previously-deceased animals.
So these are the passengers, essentially.
These are the passengers.
Using a mannequin, it's just not going
to be affected by the blast in the same way
as an actual biological entity.
It's really important for first responders
to have really the full realistic experience of going
out to a post-blast investigation
with the sights and the smells and the sounds
that would happen for a real incident, such as this.
The smells are real.
The smells are very real, yes.
[music playing]
NARRATOR: To mimic real-world evidence-gathering,
the students create a fake identity for each animal.
This is Madison Kelly.
Wow.
You literally put lipstick on a pig.
We did.
NARRATOR: And outfit them accordingly.
The personal effects that we're including
will help the responders positively
identify the individuals.
Some of the stuff that would seem a little absurd
about what's happening behind us, that's actually
happening because you are trying as much as possible
to recreate--
Exactly.
Family members are going to see something happen on television,
and they are going to wonder if their son
or daughter or husband or wife was involved in any way.
What is this?
A sheep?
She's actually an expecting mother.
Ah.
I knew I hated this one.
OK.
[music playing]
NARRATOR: As the day swings into gear,
the students load up the animals and put them in place
on the bus at the blast site.
What are you moving?
I'm trying to move its butt.
NARRATOR: A 3D scanner is also on hand to map the site
before and after the blast.
It captures a million points a second as it scans,
and it's able to deliver a very quick summary
of what happened at that scene.
NARRATOR: But there's no experiment
without an explosion.
Enter the local bomb experts, who board the bus
and set the explosive device.
So on one hand, we're here at the forefront
of a pretty important experiment in modern day forensic science.
On the other hand, I'm standing here in front of a school bus
that's filled with dead farm animals dressed up
in human clothes and they're about to be blown
to [bleeping] smithereens.
[shouting]
Three, two, one.
[explosion]
[sirens blaring]
To the untrained eye, this is just pure and total chaos.
[music playing]
NARRATOR: The search team must quickly sift through the rubble
to mark any evidence that could help identify the animals
on the bus, like body parts or personal effects--
no matter how small.
From a cigarette butt, you could get a DNA profile.
NARRATOR: Even a stray piece of plastic
could be a bomb fragment that may help identify the killer.
I don't of anything on a bus that looks like this.
NARRATOR: As the investigators work the ground,
the 3D scanner provides a detailed study
of where each piece of evidence originated
and where it ended up.
Finally, the bodies are removed from the site,
and the evidence is collected to send to the lab.
Experiments like this are really important because not
something that people see on a daily basis,
but it's going to happen.
We just don't know when, we don't know where,
so we need to be prepared for it.
NARRATOR: Because when an incident like this does happen,
the skills these students are learning
become the crucial tools that can provide
critical, real-time answers to both law enforcement
and victims' families.
[music playing]