The City of New York Office of Chief Medical Examiner

Reportable ME Deaths (OCME New York City 212-447-2030)

    • All forms of criminal violence or from an unlawful act or criminal neglect
    • All accidents (motor vehicle, falls, industrial)
    • All suicides
    • All deaths caused or contributed to by drug/chemical overdose or poisoning
    • Sudden death of a person in apparent good health
    • Death unattended by a physician
    • Deaths of all persons in legal/court ordered detention
    • Deaths during or due to complications of diagnostic or therapeutic procedures
    • Deaths related to employment
    • Deaths which occur in any suspicious or unusual manner
    • Fetus born dead due to maternal trauma or drug abuse or in the absence of a physician/midwife

Any death that is not due to 100% natural disease must be reported to the OCME, even if that injury takes years to result in the fatality.

There is no 24 hour rule in NYC; Natural deaths in patients who survived less than 24 hours in the hospital need not be reported to the OCME.

Source: www.nyc.gov/ocme