# "Well, Doc, he's green and squishy and covered in flies...": is this standard police procedure? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 20, 2010, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-doc-hes-green-and-squishy-and-covered-in-flies-is-this-standard-police-procedure/543832 "2010-06-20T02:54:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Projammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/projammer/32/559_2.png) [@Projammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Projammer)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2010, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-doc-hes-green-and-squishy-and-covered-in-flies-is-this-standard-police-procedure/543832/21 "2010-06-23T21:35:08Z")
Green and squishy would be pretty much self evident. But here is a [recent incident](http://www.kentucky.com/2010/06/17/1311823/chief-mistakes-made-in-investigation.html) where a woman didn’t recieve treatment for nearly 5 hours because the officers who discovered her declared her dead. [QUOTE=Article] Updated time line 6:24 p.m. June 9. Police are dispatched to 1486 Meadowthorpe for a health and welfare check 6:29 p.m. Officers arrive at 1486 Meadowthorpe. 7:45 p.m. Umi Southworth is found. 7:50 p.m. Homicide detectives are notified. 9:06 p.m. Homicide unit sergeant notifies coroner. 9:35 p.m. Coroner arrives. 11:05 p.m. Coroner discovers Southworth is alive. 11:07 p.m. Emergency medical service requested. 11:33 p.m. Southworth arrives at University of Kentucky Hospital. 1:19 p.m. June 10. Southworth dies at UK Hospital [/QUOTE] Whether she might have survived if treated earlier is unknown to us. But the problem was that the first officials on the scene weren’t qualified to make the determination in that case. ---
**Author:** ![Manduck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/manduck/32/256_2.png) [@Manduck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Manduck)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2010, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-doc-hes-green-and-squishy-and-covered-in-flies-is-this-standard-police-procedure/543832/22 "2010-06-23T21:50:30Z")
> [@PoorYorick](#): > > As an aside, you see all those TV shows where someone drops from a heart attack or gunshot wound or whatever, then some clown with no medical training bends down, feels the general area of the carotid, and pronounces “He’s dead”? If that’s me that drops, PLEASE perform at least a few minutes of CPR first, OK? No way man, time is money! ---
**Author:** ![The\_Devil\_s\_Grandmother](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/74df32/32.png) [@The\_Devil\_s\_Grandmother](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Devil_s_Grandmother)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2010, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-doc-hes-green-and-squishy-and-covered-in-flies-is-this-standard-police-procedure/543832/23 "2010-06-23T22:49:21Z")
> [@PoorYorick](#): > > As an aside, you see all those TV shows where someone drops from a heart attack or gunshot wound or whatever, then some clown with no medical training bends down, feels the general area of the carotid, and pronounces “He’s dead”? If that’s me that drops, PLEASE perform at least a few minutes of CPR first, OK? We promise, we’ll all be sitting at our monitors tapping the Enter key, trying to revive **PoorYorick**. ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2010, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-doc-hes-green-and-squishy-and-covered-in-flies-is-this-standard-police-procedure/543832/24 "2010-06-24T22:30:46Z")
If you watch old episodes of Cops, you’ll find that the cops refer to the people they’re investigating as “suspects” - e.g. they will say they are on the trail of a suspected car thief regardless of how overwhelming the evidence is, because it is simply not the job of police to determine guilt (though depending on the jurisdiction, law suspected of breakage, and the evidence available, they can sometimes independently decide to take action such as launching an investigation or an arrest based on probable cause without first checking with a judge, though the judge will eventually become involved if an arrest is made). ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2010, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-doc-hes-green-and-squishy-and-covered-in-flies-is-this-standard-police-procedure/543832/25 "2010-06-24T23:58:18Z")
> [@Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](#): > > Is this standard procedure? I mean, I think even a layman could diagnose “falling apart and smelling really bad” on their own. Are the medics supposed to examine every corpse happened upon, even when it’s very clearly obviously dead? So how are you going to write this new policy? A doctor must verify death unless \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-doc-hes-green-and-squishy-and-covered-in-flies-is-this-standard-police-procedure/543832.md?page=1)