Coroner's Office
Coroner: Hayley Thompson
Guidelines for Reportable Deaths:
- Sudden death of an apparently healthy person
- Deaths due to unnatural, unusual, unlawful, neglectful, violent, or suspicious circumstances
- Unknown or obscure causes
- All accidents (traffic, home, falls, industrial)
- Known or suspected abortion; fetus born dead due to maternal trauma or drug abuse; fetus born dead without the presence of medical personnel
- All suicides
- All deaths that occur in legal/court/jail/prison custody
- All deaths attributed to drug overdose or poisoning
- Deaths due to complications of therapy, surgery, or diagnostic procedures
- Any injury attributing to the death, even if the injury occurred years earlier
- Fractures that occur up to one year prior to death
- Deaths due to contagious disease that may be a public health hazard
- Indigent, unclaimed, or abandoned bodies
**Physicians may not certify any death that is not natural (i.e. homicide, suicide, accident or unknown). Contact the Coroner’s Office for guidance if the manner is not natural or you are unsure as to manner of death.
***State Statute does not require deaths less than 24 hours old to be reported as long as the death does not meet the criteria listed above.