In late September 2026 I completed three death investigation courses. Two come from the Death Investigation Training Academy and carry approvals from the Missouri POST Program and the American Board of Medicolegal Death Investigators. The third is a CDC TRAIN course on drug toxicity deaths. This post records what they are, who stands behind them, and where they fit in the work I do.
The three courses
- Foundations of Environmental Death Investigations — Death Investigation Training Academy. Approved by the Missouri POST Program for approved-provider training credit under Control Number 31578, 1.5 hours of continuing education in Technical Studies, and by ABMDI for 1.5 hours, approval number 26-117.
- Environmental Asphyxiation and Entrapment Deaths — Death Investigation Training Academy. Missouri POST Control Number 31574, one hour in Technical Studies; ABMDI approval number 26-116, one hour.
- Investigation and Certification of Drug Toxicity Deaths — CDC TRAIN course WB4884, completed 28 September 2026. This one is a certificate of completion rather than continuing-education credit.
What the approvals mean
A POST program is a state’s standards and training authority for law enforcement. Missouri’s program reviews training providers and assigns a control number to each course it accepts for continuing-education credit, and Technical Studies is one of the categories it sorts that credit into. ABMDI is the national certifying board for medicolegal death investigators, and its approval numbers serve the same purpose for the continuing education its registrants and diplomates have to maintain. Neither approval is a license or a board certification in itself. What they do is put the coursework on a footing that a retaining attorney or a court can check, which is the standard every credential on this site is held to.
Where this fits
Workplace fatality investigation has been part of my practice since the fire service. Environmental deaths, asphyxiation in confined or oxygen-deficient spaces, entrapment in machinery or collapsed material, and drug toxicity are all mechanisms that appear in occupational fatalities and in the litigation that follows them. In California, 8 CCR §342(a) starts an eight-hour reporting clock the moment an employer learns of a death, and the investigation that follows has to describe the mechanism accurately, because that description is later read by the Division, by counsel on both sides and sometimes by a jury.
Death investigation coursework is not a substitute for a coroner’s or medical examiner’s determination. It is training in how those determinations are reached, which is what an investigator or an expert needs in order to read them correctly and to know when to ask for more.
The certificates are held on file and are provided on request; the POST control numbers and ABMDI approval numbers above are printed on the face of each one. The full list of my training is on the credentials page.
Michael Karl McNeil, REP, RIH, EPP, QSD
Michael Karl McNeil — environmental health and safety, industrial hygiene, Cal/OSHA citation defense.
