Guide
What happens after a death at home in High Point
If the death was expected and a hospice nurse or doctor is involved, they will guide you and little of this page applies. It is written for the other kind: sudden, unexplained, violent, or discovered late.
Phone picked up day and night, every day of the week
The order things happen in
Call 911
Say that someone has died or appears to have died, and give the address. If you are not sure, the dispatcher will tell you what to do until help comes. Then wait outside the room.
Police and medics arrive
Officers treat an unexplained death as something to be looked into, which can feel cold when it is your family. They may ask you to wait in another part of the house or outside. It is routine.
The medical examiner is told
North Carolina law sends certain deaths to the county medical examiner: those from violence, poisoning, accident, suicide or homicide, and sudden deaths of someone who seemed in good health or had no doctor attending. The medical examiner decides whether an examination is needed.
Your relative is taken into care
Which autopsy center is involved depends on the county where the person died. The state's guide for families lists the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Raleigh, (919) 743-9000, for Guilford County, and Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, (336) 716-2634, for Davidson and Forsyth counties. High Point reaches into all three, so ask the officer which applies.
You choose a funeral home
Pick a funeral home or crematorium and give its name to the center. The center then helps arrange the transfer. The state's guide allows up to 10 days from the date of death unless you have agreed something else with the medical examiner. Viewings are not held at the center; your funeral home arranges that.
The home is released
When the officers have finished they will tell you the home is yours again. Ask for the report number. Whatever was in the room is still there; this is the point at which most people realize nobody is coming to clean.
Cleanup is arranged
Shut the door, keep everyone out, and call a biohazard cleanup company or the number on this site. The company can usually work from a key and a signed authorization if you would rather not be present.
Paperwork follows
If the cause is still being determined, the death certificate may read “pending”; the medical examiner's questions page says a pending certificate can still serve as legal proof of death for things like closing utility accounts.
Keep these together
A short list for the kitchen table
- From the police
- The officer's name, the agency and the report number.
- From the medical examiner
- Which center has your relative, and the name of the person you spoke to.
- Personal items
- Things found with the person are inventoried and handed to the funeral home unless officers keep them as evidence. Ask the officer what was taken from the house.
- From the cleanup company
- A written scope and price before, an itemized bill and a list of what was removed after.
What people ask in the first day
Will there be an autopsy?
Not always. The state's guide says many people do not need one; the medical examiner's team decides how the cause of death is established. Where foul play is suspected, expect one.
How long before we can hold a funeral?
The state says most people are ready for release soon after the examination is finished. The center, not the police, tells the funeral home when.
Can we stay in the house tonight?
Once it is released, that is your decision. If the room can be closed off and there is no odor in the other rooms, many families do. If not, stay elsewhere until the cleanup is done.
High Point and the Triad towns nearby
Nobody in the family should have to clean that room
Give them the address and one sentence about what took place. They will want to know if the officers and the medical examiner are done there, and then they will describe their approach.
When you are ready, call.
Whoever picks up is with a separately owned local firm that does biohazard and trauma cleaning around High Point. Listen to their plan and their price. Whether you hire them is up to you.
Call (743) 256-4780Phone picked up day and night, every day of the week
Your conversation may be recorded. The referral disclosure says who pays for this service, and the privacy policy covers what is kept.