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Guide, step by step

When someone dies at home

This is the usual order of things in Hennepin and Anoka counties. You do not need to remember it all. Take one step at a time.

In order

  1. Call 911

    Unless the death was expected under hospice care and the hospice told you what to do, call 911. Police and paramedics will come.

  2. The medical examiner is told

    Sudden and unexpected deaths, and deaths at home without a doctor in attendance, are reported to the medical examiner (Minn. Stat. 390.11). An investigator may come to the house.

  3. Leave things as they are

    No one may move the person or their belongings without the examiner's say-so while the death is under investigation (Minn. Stat. 390.221).

  4. Choose a funeral home

    Any funeral home can help with burial or cremation and tell you its prices. The funeral director collects your relative from the examiner's office.

  5. Belongings

    Clothing and items taken with your relative normally go to the funeral home. After a homicide they go to the police instead.

  6. Clean up when it is released

    Once the police and examiner are done, the home is yours. If there are fluids or a smell, call a cleanup company rather than doing it yourself.

The two medical examiner offices

Minneapolis, Edina, Hopkins, Brooklyn Center

The Hennepin County Medical Examiner, 14250 County Road 62, Minnetonka.

612-215-6300, answered 24 hours a day. Office hours are 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on weekdays.

Fridley and Columbia Heights

The Midwest Medical Examiner's Office, 14341 Rhinestone Street NW, Ramsey, which serves Anoka County.

763-324-4400. Its investigators come from home to the place of death, so it can take a while before one arrives (family brochure).

Papers to keep

The Hennepin office suggests keeping every business card you are handed by the police, the examiner, the ambulance crew and the funeral home, and starting a folder for the paperwork (Hennepin County). You will need it for death certificates, which come through the funeral director, and for any insurance or estate claim.

A woman sits at a kitchen table with a notebook and a cup of tea, on the phone

When you are ready, call

You will speak with an independent cleanup company that works in and around Minneapolis. Describe what happened in your own words and ask what they would do. You decide whether to go ahead.

Talk to a cleanup company

Call (612) 493-4397

Answered 24 hours a day, 7 days a week

Calls may be recorded. More in the referral disclosure and privacy policy.

Call (612) 493-4397