Where you live, who can declare a person deceased.....???

[havasu]

As a working police officer, I had to pronounce the death many times. There had to be a separation of body parts, but we didn't want 20 firemen tromping thru our crime scene. Anything short of an easily identified dead person, we'd have paramedics rush them to the hospital and they would pronounce the time of death.

 

[Weedygarden]

A coroner must declare the cause of death, but is not necessary to declare the person dead.

 

[Haertig]

When I was working as a paramedic, we did not declare people dead. But we were allowed to decide if we wanted to try and resuscitate them or not.

If resuscitation had already been started by someone else, we were supposed to radio in to the doc in the hospital to report that we were stopping resuscitation attempts. We could do this after the fact. If WE had been the ones to initiate resuscitation ourselves, we were supposed to radio in and get a docs approval to stop resuscitation before actually stopping. But we were also instructed, ... "IF the situation allows". These were our standing orders. I guess technically that last one is not a "standing" order. Standing orders are ones that can be written down. "If you observe A and B and C, then do D". You don't need to radio in and get permission. Example, "If you see a patient in V-Fib on your monitor, defibrillate them". Specific orders are different and require specific permission from a physician, every time. Example: We were allowed to give morphine on our own for "chest pain of suspected cardiac origin" (standing order). But we had to radio in and get specific permission to give that same patient a baby aspirin (call-in order). That always seemed so strange to me, but those were the orders we operated under. I'm sure there was a reason why the physicians wanted it that way, but they never told us why and we chose not to ask and possibly suffer their wrath.

If there was no chance for the victim, even untrained lay people seemed to recognize that. I never ran into any untrained first responders who had started CPR on an obvious corpse.

 

[havasu]

To elaborate, if the treating physician refuses to sign off as a natural cause, it must be reported as a coroner's case. If no foul play is expected, the body can be shipped to a mortuary with a later contact by the coroner's office.

 

[Dave V]

Of course people have also been known to come back to life or be nearly mostly dead.........

Mostly Dead...

 

[lonewolf]

over here its a Doctor who confirms the person is deceased and issues a death certificate.

 

[joel]

I can see where if a person moved a body, they could be charged with tampering with evidence. Maybe even if they simply moved it off the high traffic highway. Or back from the edge of a cliff or pulled it out of the water.

That what 911 is for

 

[joel]

It is my understanding that you can be heart dead or brain dead or cellular dead.

 

[Haertig]

It is my understanding that you can be heart dead or brain dead or cellular dead.

Clinical death is when your heart stops beating. This is "mostly dead". Cells can survive for a short time (a few minutes). It is reversible sometimes. I imagine this is what you are calling "heart dead" (terms for these things may be different between the USA and the UK - you're in the UK, right?)

Biological death is when cells start dying due to lack of oxygen. First happens in the brain, hence the "brain dead" term. This is "all the way dead". It is not reversible. It is possible to still be mobile and vote in this condition, if you are a liberal.

I have not heard of something that would match "cellular dead". But I guess this might be when a liberal finally falls to the ground.

 

[Caribou]

Sounds like a was of time and resources to me. But that's probably the law there. Laws are made by politicians. Who for the most part, don't appear to know much about things they make laws for. Which explains why you might be required to drag an obviously dead body to a hospital, wasting the time of everybody involved and potentially causing additional and unnecessary mental duress for the family. Common sense should rule. But it doesn't.

In Alaska an MD or an EMT who has a physician sponsor. There may be others that I’m unaware of. The EMT declares death but not the cause. Taking the body to the hospital is department policy, not the law. I’ve has a patient die while I was traveling to him. We declared him dead and left the body in the village. The troopers might have flown out to inspect the body, but I doubt it. An official needs to inspect the body. When my cousin died at home, hospice called the Troopers. The body was picked up by the mortuary. Her doctor filled out the death certificate. I don’t believe that the doc ever saw the body.

It is important to know the legal requirements so we are prepared for the dying times. We may not be able to follow the law but we need to be able to explain why we didn’t, if the question ever comes up.

 

[Cabin Fever]

It is very important. Lobby a Moderator to move the thread.

"It is very important" is a non-answer. Could you elaborate?

FWIW, a doctor must sign a death certificate providing the cause of death. If foul play is involved, a county coroner or medical examinator must sign the death certificate and provide the cause of death.