Sudden Death: An Emergency Nurse Perspective

Abstract

After a person dies in the emergency department, a series of activities form the procedural base to sudden death. The person is declared dead; the body must be identified, cleaned, wrapped and transported to a mortuary. Evidence relating the death must be documented, and property is to be packed carefully. The process has a temporal aspect in that each cannot occur out of sequence. Relatives may soon arrive, and they need to be supported by the emergency nurse, trauma counsellor or the hospital chaplain. This chapter considers the procedural base to sudden death work by emergency nurses.