LOS ANGELES, CA - Selecting the right professional to provide for your client’s needs is imperative. Vidal Herrera believes his company, Autopsy/Post Services, Inc. (APSI) is that firm. APSI specializes in assessing the client’s medical concerns by suggesting the right pathological and/or other essential related services they may require. APSI offers 19 special services which include Private & Forensic autopsies, Disinterment/Exhumation, Medical Photography, Post Mortem neurological (Alzheimer’s etc.) diagnosis, Hospital autopsy support services, Post DNA analysis, Tissue & organ procurement, and Post traumatic (De-Comp) clean up. APSI provides a free initial consultation for private autopsies that are requested. APSI assures that an autopsy will neither disfigure the body nor its natural appearance and will NOT interfere with the viewing. Actual services are performed in a space designated by the funeral director and/or hospital facility. Off-site autopsy facilities are also available, along with arrangements for national and international incoming cases, if needed. APSI is available seven days a week, twenty four hours a day, including holidays.

The primary purpose of an autopsy, according to Mr. Herrera, is to put to rest any questions the family may have regarding the cause and manner of death, nature of an illness and reassurance that the appropriate health care was provided. Vidal Herrera has 23 years of experience in this field, beginning at the LAC/USC Medical Center in 1972, as a nursing orderly, X-ray darkroom attendant, central service attendant, E.R. admitting clerk, morgue attendant, volunteer-autopsy technician, Forensic autopsy photographer, and eventually Deputy Medical Field investigator with the Coroner’s office. Between 1980-84, Herrera was the only Spanish speaking investigator and this earned him the nickname "El Muerto: (Mr. Death) in the latino communities of southern California. After sustaining a severe career-ending back injury in August 1984, he was confined to a wheelchair and underwent four years of rehabilitation. Herrera established APSI in late 1988. His experience in human health care, law enforcement, and recognizing the crucial role of the funeral director helped him develop APSI’s approach to a modern "nitch" death care specialty service. APSI performs approximately 700 autopsies a year, not including hospital (diener) autopsies, tissue procurements consultant work in the entertainment industry, and decomposition clean-ups. APSI is a totally autonomous and mobile-based medical specialty company that has cultivated a distinguished reputation of excellence within the funeral industry, hospitals, research institutions, and the legal community.

APSI’s "Customer First" policy includes a commitment to meeting the families needs, as well as providing them with new and innovative specialty services, ensuring a consistent high standard of service through it’s own medical advisory panel of well respected pathologists Herrera, through APSI franchises and electronic networking, hopes to develop a new vision by way of global awareness, implementing a new infrastructure of multidisciplinary resource centers to facilitate information exchange and centralize more administrative functions through established entities. His ambition is to link, via the internet, all funeral directors, medical schools, hospitals, tissue & transplant organizations, willed body programs, Veterinarian’s (NECROPSY) as well as the organizations involved in the collection and recycling of eye glasses, hearing aids, pace makers, and wheel chairs, which can be donated to developing countries. "Lack of understanding is the greatest barrier in our country and the world for that matter," says Herrera. "While the business of the funeral director is ‘always’ depicted negatively, our society still hasn’t acknowledged the true value of the mortician when it comes to saving lives and assisting in disasters, " he adds. APSI, given the information and resources available, hopes to provide a meaningful and important perspective through technology to build the combined strength necessary to successfully address a very misunderstood profession. "mortuis praesdium et vocem dare necessee est." (the deceased must be protected and given a voice.)

Plans to franchise will put embalmers, pathology assistants, autopsy technicians, pathologists and the like as principal candidates to operate an autopsy business. Herrera has targeted approximately 72 locations in the United States. Offers from Mexico, Canada, Central America, England, Asia and Australia are currently being considered. The franchises in the U.S. should be available within the next 6 months.