DOA's

[scubanurse]

we call PD since they have the authority of the Coroner...we wait till PD gets there and then we go....i always make sure i ask the family members if there is anything i can do for them, sometimes a hug or glass of water can help them. We carry a list of counselors as well and i have called before in the case of SIDS. I called a certified counselor to come in and be with the family since i wasn't qualified. Just remember when you are there you are the first person that these people will associate with the loss of their loved one, be polite and understanding and they will remember that for a long time.

[steph1030]

we usualy call pd 1st then have county call coroner and funeral home

we keep a list of grief counseling/etc for the family and make sure that they have the appropriate numbers needed

consoling the family the best way is to let them call the shots(within reason of course0and try to help them as much as possible

if they are alone @ tod ask if you can call someone for them,neighbor,friend,family etc

compassion goes a long way

for the ones that dont exercise it try it sometime it works!

[Riblett]

I work in two different counties, both are very different in the way they handle DOAs. One of them is a metropolitan area containing the state capital. The other is a smaller rural county to the north.

In the larger city/county if EMS finds a DOA, as defined by our protocols and determined by the highest level on scene provider, then police are notified. Police are also dispatched to all pediatric codes and most other codes. In a DOA or resucitation discontinuation EMS will request police to attend the body and make arrangements. If it was an attended death, meaning patient had a primary care physician and they are willing to sign the death certificate the police can release the body directly to the funeral home as long as the death was not of a suspicious nature. If this is not the case, or the death was suspicious in nature then the body is transported to the morgue by as special unit known as WC-7, staffed mostly by moonlighting police officers and EMTs.

In the smaller rural county police are not dispatched and come only if requested. Police will still release the body to funeral homes if it is a natural death with an attending doc. But if not, the body is transported to the morgue by EMS. Fun stuff.

[CBEMT]

100% police responsibility. Their supervisor signs my run report, he gets a copy, I go back in service. If it meets ME requirements, they make the call and babysit. If not, family is free to call their funeral home.

That said, at my full-time job a DOA is probably going to be a LOT more complicated than that, but this is how it would run at my 911 job (where it's 200x as likely).

As of our last protocol update, under no circumstances is an EMS unit to transport a cadaver. (It happened after an MCI a few years ago; the after-action report pointed out what a @#$%ed-up idea that is. Apparently it caught someone's eye.)

[NREMT-Basic]

I am honestly not sure how our protocol runs on this. I am with IMERT so we are usually responding to MCIs, since that is really what we are set up to do. My understanding based on situations like Katrina is that during the triage process (which is pretty much ongoing) black tags are confirmed with Medical Command Officer (a trauma doc) and then we call a local service to transport to wherever the morgue has been set up, which is usually a gymnasium, or some place else cool to slow decomp. From the people from the IMERT team I have talked to about Katrina dealing with DOAs was kind of a constant process and I imagine the environmental conditions didnt help the condition of the bodies. Again, since I just recently started with them, I am not entirely sure what they do. If I find out at training on Sept 22, I will post it. I know some DMAT teams in other states have a morgue detail. In other services I have worked with its have both crew members confirm death, contact coroner who comes out whether or not cause is natural and then we leave the deceased with her and the local PD. Ive never been with a service that transports corpses, partly because it should technically involved de-con of the rig.