What to do with this body?

May 22, 2013 12:41 PM

Let's say you drop-in to visit an older loved one, and find them dead...

Sorry to be such a downer, but this is a scenario I could easily find myself in, and I am clueless as to how to proceed.

What should you do upon discovering a loved one who has passed away. Let's assume no foul play. Natural causes.

Do you call the cops? Call an ambulance? Just call 911 and let them decide who to send?
Seems to me, taking the body to a hospital would be silly (as well as expensive) because, well, they're dead. But, the body has to go somewhere.

Do you immediately start cold-calling funeral homes and have them handle whatever has to happen?

Obviously, I have absolutely no experience in these matters, but I can see it happening in the near future, and I can't find the chapter covering this in my Human Bean Handbook.

posted by Thorzdad to Grab Bag (28 answers total)

If they are definitely dead -- cold to the touch -- you don't need to call 911. I'd start with a funeral home. If you think this is likely to happen soon, it might be a good idea to talk to this loved one about his/her wishes for after death, which could help you narrow down funeral homes so you don't have to make cold calls.
posted by croutonsupafreak at 12:44 PM on May 22, 2013

You call 911 and let them decide. You don't know what exactly caused the death, even if you think it's obvious. There could be something else happening. Old, sick people die of carbon monoxide poisoning, too.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 12:44 PM on May 22, 2013 [18 favorites]

This "what to do when someone dies" checklist looks useful.
posted by showbiz_liz at 12:44 PM on May 22, 2013 [7 favorites]

Call the police / 911 immediately. Even archaeologists who find skeletons on their digs call the police immediately, even if it is patently obvious from an archaeological perspective that they have been dead for eons. This lack of foul play... is not your decision to make. Call it in, let the emergency crew show up, stick around and explain to them what you think happened. Perhaps if it is a very old relative who is obviously dead when the paramedics arrive you may be able to persuade them to leave the body in peace out of respect, but... dude, call 911.
posted by Joey Buttafoucault at 12:46 PM on May 22, 2013 [21 favorites]

If it's unexpected, call the police non-emergency line (it's not an emergency as they're dead and there's no obvious signed of foul play).

If it's expected (for example, they had cancer or some other fatal disease) and you are present at their death, you call a funeral home.
posted by inturnaround at 12:51 PM on May 22, 2013 [1 favorite]

You don't have to call 911, there is no emergency. Just call the regular police business line, like the beginning of Confess, Fletch.
posted by Confess, Fletch at 12:51 PM on May 22, 2013 [2 favorites]

You call 911, but if the death was expected then you tell them that so that the correct people are sent. In Houston, they send out an ambulance to get the body. The coroner gives you a death certificate, which you need to close out the estate and various other activities. When the coroner is finished, you can contact the funeral home and they take it from there.

Possibly this varies depending on state? I'm pretty sure in my location the funeral home won't bypass the coroner, and that only the coroner issues the death certificate.
posted by Houstonian at 12:55 PM on May 22, 2013 [1 favorite]

You're getting some pretty widely varying answers in this thread. I suggest maybe calling the non-emergency number of your local police and asking them what they suggest, because as Houstonian said, it likely varies by location.
posted by hasna at 1:02 PM on May 22, 2013 [4 favorites]

My mother and I had that experience when I was young.

What she did was call my grandmother's doctor, who advised her (in this case my greatgrandmother was in the home as well and he advised my mom to let HIM break the news as we were worried about how she would take it, being in her nineties and all.)

I'd start with 911 unless you were very very sure what caused the death, and for that matter sure that the person IS dead. You want to make sure it isn't a crime scene.
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 1:02 PM on May 22, 2013 [1 favorite]

When my Grandma died (expected) we called her hospice worker, who came right over. YMM, of course, V if hospice isn't involved.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 1:03 PM on May 22, 2013

You might also look at the answers to:
- inevitability
- Do hearses make house calls?
- Practical steps to take after a person dies
- Needing cold hard facts and logistics for after mom dies.
- What happens when police find dead people?
posted by Houstonian at 1:04 PM on May 22, 2013 [5 favorites]

Response by poster: Houstonian, thanks for those links. My search-fu did not serve me well, apparently.
posted by Thorzdad at 1:05 PM on May 22, 2013

My brother and I found my Dad dead at his place when I was 18. We called 911, because we didn't know what else to do. They were very nice and took care of everything from there. They're used to these sorts of calls, from my limited, one-time experience.
posted by xingcat at 1:17 PM on May 22, 2013 [2 favorites]

You're getting plenty of advice that's good, albeit different. I think the specific question is a bit too narrow and context-dependent to answer, but it might be helpful to add: Personally, I call the non-emergency lines of my local police and fire departments far more often than I call 911. However, I'm also not skittish about calling 911. I dial 911 a couple times a year to report things like an obviously drunk driver, a just-happened highway accident, a lightning fire, etc.

They're not quite interchangeable, but I'd say both cover a wide variety of circumstances and there's a fair degree of overlap where calling either number would be appropriate.
posted by cribcage at 1:26 PM on May 22, 2013

I called the funeral home after the expected death of my first wife. The removed her remains and contacted her physician. No cops involved. Meanwhile, every cell in my body registered its grief and for a while there, I thought maybe they should have carted me off, too! There followed two or three days which I am challenged to remember more than a few minutes. If I had had to have a nice chat and tea with the PoPo, there might have been a scene.

Confronted today with unanticipated death like this, I'd call the police immediately since they do encounter that sort of thing regularly. Folks die a lot, usually for good and proper reasons.

We certainly wall off death from much of our society, don't we?

Mary Roach wrote Stiff and there is another book, Caring for your own dead that discuss some of the nuts and bolts of being dead.
posted by FauxScot at 1:37 PM on May 22, 2013 [4 favorites]

When making funeral arrangements for my uncle about a year ago, I asked the funeral director this question as my mother is not in the best of shape and my sister's greatest nightmare is finding her passed on to greener pastures. His advice -- and this is in New York State -- was to first call 911 and then him (the funeral director) to inform him of an impending pick-up. Once the police / authorities OK the removal of the body, the funeral director comes for the body.
posted by cool breeze at 1:45 PM on May 22, 2013

This happened with my dad a few years ago. He was found by his cleaning lady who, I believe, called the cops. Don't know if it was 911 or local folks. Where he was I think 911 gets you the troopers and regular number gets you the guys from town. A few things happened in rapid succession...

- This was a small town so they came over and then called his friend and his ex-wife. His ex-wife called me. This was suboptimal but I understand why they did it.
- This was an "unattended death" which meant that in Massachusetts they needed to do a blood/tox test of some sort. We did not want an autopsy. I am not sure if we would have been able to choose if the cause of death was unusual but it wasn't so this was a non-issue.
- They asked us what we (me and my sister and his next of kin) wanted to do with the body. We made arrangements with the one funeral home in town at that point. They took my father's body to their place and kept it until we were certain there would be no autopsy.
- They made sure the house was secure and that my father's belongings were secure. This involved taking all the prescription medication out of the house (which we did not get back), giving my father's wallet to his friend (after asking me over the phone if this was okay) overseeing removing the body and making sure the house was locked up. It also involved making sure there was a plan for the pets. The dog was taken in with friends, the cats stayed in the house with someone to take care of them and look in on them until we could get there. This was all pretty routine but the police were very very kind and professional about the whole thing and this was clearly something that they had done before.

Can't remember if there was anything else that happened or needed doing, it was all pretty much a blur in my mind but hope that's helpful.
posted by jessamyn at 2:10 PM on May 22, 2013 [4 favorites]

In the UK, if it's unexpected I think they have to go to the mortuary. You call emergency services and they fix it from there. You can get the body (or the funeral director can) once the coroner releases it. There are a bunch of forms.Expected deaths, I think you call the doctor who was caring for them to certify the death. There are forms. Then you call the funeral director. But really if you just called emergency services they'll know what to do.
posted by plonkee at 2:27 PM on May 22, 2013

When I was 21 I found my mom after she passed in her sleep at 51. Our house was outside of city limits, and that changes what emergency services respond. I called 911, and waited for local-ish paramedics and the County Sheriff to arrive. Since the death was unattended (read no Dr. Present) there were medical exams that had to occur. After the County Coroner was done, our local funeral home took care of the rest. It's best to know how your location/emergency services/funeral home info before hand if you are able. I'm sure your local funeral home would be happy to answer your questions over the phone.
posted by Bohemia Mountain at 2:34 PM on May 22, 2013

In a pinch, calling 911 will get things moving and will get someone there to help start the process. If nothing else, calling 911 for an unexpected death isn't a bad idea because, hey, maybe they really aren't dead after all and need to be evaluated by someone with medical training.

In a really clear situation where someone has obviously been lying there dead for ages, you might call the non-emergency line instead, as there isn't any possible urgency.

In some cases, you might have different instructions for an expected death, such as when a patient is on hospice and/or under the supervision of a physician. In that case, the hospice service should have discussed arrangements ahead of time. They may want you to just call them and the funeral home instead of the authorities. The hospice and funeral home people will know the policies in the local area and will take care of the legal paperwork. In a lot of places, the coroner/medical examiner doesn't need to come out in these situations unless there's some unusual situation present.

If you're interested, here's the policy from the Medical Examiner in a county in Florida that discusses when the ME's office needs to get involved.
posted by zachlipton at 2:57 PM on May 22, 2013 [1 favorite]

This all varies a lot depending on where you are. When I was in your situation the first time, I talked with the district nurse about it before the event, and made a plan. If you don't have a district nurse, you may want to talk with your relative's doctor.
I think a doctor or registered nurse needs to make the death certificate asap no matter what, so 911 is always a good call.

As it happened, all my relatives died with someone present. We registered the time of death (very important for legal reasons), and if no doctor or nurse was present, we called one. No police was involved, but lawyers happened next day as far as I can recall. It's a stressful situation.

We called the funeral home, and they helped with everything else.
posted by mumimor at 3:00 PM on May 22, 2013

Oh I forgot one detail. They did have to have the medical examiner come by the house (this varies dramatically from state to state) and the guy who was there, the death certificate signer (which is cause of death and time of death both of which may be quite important), was not the main guy which I think is why we wound up having to get the blood tests done which we would not have had to have gotten done otherwise in this small town situation.
posted by jessamyn at 3:35 PM on May 22, 2013

I deal with this a couple of times a year. Here's how it works in my state:

The key is getting a death certificate, without which there can be no burial/cremation. If the death is truly expected (like the person is on hospice care) then you can call the hospice progam who will arrange for the person's physician to sign the death certificate and call the funeral home. The death certificate HAS to be signed before a funeral which sometimes results in some awkward situations--I've had funeral home employees at my house on Saturday mornings so I could sign DCs. The death certificate requires the MD to attest to the cause of death, though, so if there's any doubt, you should get the medical examiner involved.

The easiest way to get the ME involved is to call 911. EMS gets these calls all the time and they are used to them. Finding a person dead counts as an emergency. They will come out and the representative from the ME's office will listen to the story and decide if the case needs to be referred to the ME's office (for an autopsy) or not. If they're on the fence, the ME's office will sometimes call the primary care doctor to see if the person had any medical conditions that could reasonably have led to their death. In any case, if they decide against autopsy then they will help arrange for a death certificate and advise you on next steps. The person is not taken to a hospital unless the EMTs think there is a reasonable chance for resuscitation.
posted by The Elusive Architeuthis at 5:17 PM on May 22, 2013

I strongly recommend the moment you discover the body, if you have power of attorney, lock down their bank accounts cold. My mom's bank account got raided by a straight forward money laundering scheme and it was an effort that we did not need to get the funds restored.
posted by plinth at 8:01 PM on May 22, 2013 [1 favorite]

It happened with my mother.
My brother found her.
The ambulance collected her body.
She was under a doctor's care due to advanced lung cancer, so there was no requirement for a post-mortem or police.
I think that the emergency services line decided who to send.
In Australia.
posted by b33j at 9:03 PM on May 22, 2013

One factor I haven't seen mentioned yet is that securing a Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) order ahead of time may be appropriate if the individual doesn't want CPR and other invasive lifesaving techniques employed. If you call 911 (which is the normal procedure in my locality), the police and paramedics who arrive may be obliged to start CPR unless there are obvious signs that the person has been dead a long time, such as rigor mortis. A DNR allows them to respect the person's wishes and withhold any interventions. It has the positive side effect of sparing family onlookers the final image of CPR being performed on their loved one. It may or may not be appropriate in your situation depending on the medical prognosis of your family member and their feelings about medical intervention if they go into cardiac arrest.
posted by itstheclamsname at 3:53 AM on May 23, 2013 [1 favorite]

When my grandfather died (in his sleep, at my aunt's house), my aunt called the funeral home (he was 89, and had had health problems, so he and my grandmother had chosen a funeral home). The funeral home lady said the police had to be called because of the "unattended death" thing that jessamyn mentions, but she also said that if there was anyone who wanted to come by to see him before the police came, there was no real need to call them right away. I think some of my other relatives who lived an hour or two away were able to come and be with his body before the police came.

So, yeah, call someone who deals with dead people on a regular basis: a funeral home or emergency services. They will tell you specifically what you need to do.

If you feel like this is something that's likely to happen, it might be worth talking with these loved ones about whether they have a funeral home in mind (or any end-of-life wishes in general). Obviously that may not be an option with everyone.
posted by mskyle at 1:44 PM on May 23, 2013

Is your family Catholic? My dad got really upset that the police wouldn't let the priest in to give the final sacrament. If he had to do it over again, he would call the priest first and then when that was done he would call the police, even if it put him over the edge of the law. He was willing to deal with that for the sake of his loved one's eternal peace.
posted by CathyG at 4:05 PM on May 24, 2013