In 2020, I used social media for my Coroner’s posts on COVID-19. These are some of the Facebook posts I wrote documenting the first surge of the pandemic in early 2020. The posts are unedited and shown with original images. The quality of writing and graphics could be better, but that wasn’t the priority at…
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Private Autopsies in 2025
More families may be seeking private autopsies in 2025. Coroners and medical examiners, at least in Pennsylvania, only do autopsies on cases that fall within their legal purview. Hospitals may not grant family requests for a medical autopsy when someone dies of apparent natural causes (see below). Sometimes a family is concerned about neglect or…
DMORT: Past, Present, Future
What is DMORT? The acronym DMORT stands for Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Team. DMORT is part of the federal National Disaster Medical System within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Once the President declares a major federal disaster or a Governor declares a state disaster, coroners and medical examiners faced with a…