Are all deaths reported to the Coroner?

No. In York County, the following deaths are not reportable:

  • Decedents who are in-patients of a hospital for at least 24 hours and die as the result of only natural causes.
  • Decedents who die of only natural causes as a resident of a skilled nursing facility or while in hospice care.

The following deaths are reportable to the Coroner in York County:

  • All forms of criminal violence, unlawful acts or criminal neglect resulting in death
  • All accidents (motor vehicle accidents, home accidents, falls or industrial accidents)
  • All suicides
  • All deaths caused or contributed to by drug/chemical overdose or poisoning
  • Sudden death of a person in apparent good health
  • Deaths unattended by a physician (i.e. decedent has not been under a physician's care, or physician or certified registered nurse practitioner [CRNP] who had been treating decedent prior to death had not treated decedent for illness decedent is thought to have succumbed to)
  • Death of a decedent in York County who has been treated by an out-of-state physician who is not licensed in PA and therefore cannot sign the PA death certificate
  • Deaths in a prison or penal institution
  • Deaths while in police custody
  • Deaths during or due to complications of diagnostic or therapeutic procedures (including operative or peri-operative) in which the death is not readily explainable on the basis of prior disease
  • Any death in which trauma, falls or fractures, chemical injury, asphyxia, exposure, fire, drug overdose or reaction to drugs or medical treatment was a primary or secondary, direct or indirect, contributory, aggravating or precipitating cause of death
  • Deaths related to employment
  • Deaths occurring in a suspicious or unusual manner
  • Any death wherein the body is unidentified or unclaimed
  • Deaths known or suspected as due to contagious disease and constituting a public health hazard.
  • Deaths of persons whose bodies are to be cremated, buried at sea or otherwise disposed of so as to be thereafter unavailable for examination
  • Any sudden infant death
  • Stillbirth due to maternal trauma or drug abuse or in absence of physician or midwife

Show All Answers

1. Who is the Coroner?
2. What are the duties of the Coroner?
3. Where is the jurisdiction of the Coroner?
4. Who notifies the Coroner's Office of a death?
5. Are all deaths reported to the Coroner?
6. Are all Coroner records available to the public?
7. How do I obtain a Coroner's Report? Autopsy Report? Toxicology Report?
8. What is the cost for reports?
9. Who can retrieve the personal effects recovered from a decedent?
10. Do I need to identify or can I view my loved one in the morgue?