Would you want to read the medical examiners report after a loved one passed away?

I did following my Mom’s death.
Her health was a train wreck.

It would vary, for me, case to case.

Largely though, I believe once a person has passed, it’s none of our business anymore.

Obviously, there are cases where post mortem evidence is required, for legal purposes like a murder investigation.

I learned a LOT, after my grandmother passed.
I was unable to visit her before she passed, because of Covid era rules. It was horribly sad, and finding out about things that must have surely caused her great pain, made it more traumatic (for me.)..

It also made me at least temporarily, feel like I had let her down. Like I should have noticed, this, or that…
And I did let her down…I should have made more of an effort to visit her more often.
She was living north of Columbia SC, so it was a 2 hour drive one way, and our visits were so brief, it was hard to get up to if. I always planned trips there, but something would come up…
She also suffered greatly, from dementia, meaning that when I did visit, it was awful. I felt terrible, the entire time, and it hurt me to see her like that. So. I hadn’t seen her in a couple years, when she passed away.
Even then, we just got to see her through a window outside…

When I got a chance, I did read the final medical report and that included the results of the autopsy. Afterward, I felt, like I had violated her privacy.
Seeing all of the issues she had, made me feel so much worse for not visiting her more.
Unfortunately. I myself was very ill, and awaiting my liver transplant, when she got really sick.

I found that I also decided to be really mad at her church. She was a devout Christian woman, who went to church all the time.
They eventually built a sort of mega church, that was very expensive.
My grandmother attended that church for probably 50+ years. I KNOW she gave them money, even when she was broke…
In the end, I fully expected the church and her “friends” there, to try to help her. After all, they were in Columbia, and I was in Charleston.

I guess I’m rambling now. Sorry.
I just wanted to say, it was just another really awful part of a horrible death of a VERY nice and formerly bubbly and hot tempered, great woman.

She was the hub, of the family, and unfortunately, we fell apart without her. Further adding to the sadness of the whole thing.

However. I suppose it could be healing, to some.
Maybe you could get a paper copy, and read it one day, when you’re ready. Or toss it, if you decide not to.
You won’t be able to UNread it…

I personally have a phobia, about autopsies as well, so it just made my own feelings about my mortality worse…

It would depend on the circumstances. Also, sometimes there is no report, for example if the person had a chronic illness like cancer, they wouldn’t do an autopsy. My mom died of cancer, and there was no autopsy.

If it were a person who I was close with (close friend or family) and they died suddenly or of unknown causes, I might want to know why. I couldn’t give a definitive “yes” or “no” without the circumstances. It would be on a case by case basis.

Yes. I wanted to know exactly what was going on at the moment of death. Which organ failed, what he might have experienced. I paid a lot of money for a full privaate autopsy report, but I never got it.

I sure wouldn’t ask, though, unless I really, really, really wanted to know.

I appreciate all the answers here.

From my understanding, my mom had 6 different things wrong with her heart. The arteries in her heart burst, it was instant. I know 2 of the 6 things.

I was told she would have needed a heart replacement, and even then she would not have lived long. So I am trying to understand how she had all these issues and did not know?

Thank you all, really. Thank you.

^Unfortunately, a LOT of people are walking around with undiagnosed heart problems.

I’m not sure if anyone here follows sports, but LeBron James (American basketball player/Lakers,) has children.
His son Bronny, followed (although not as good as) his father’s footsteps and eventually played on a college team.

Bronny played for USC and 2023 was his final collegiate season before going pro.
At a random practice in July ‘23, Bronny (a seemingly VERY healthy 19 year old son of one of the NBAs greatest players,) suffered a heart attack.

He’s OK. He actually plays with his father, on The Lakers now.
But. The 19 year old child of a billionaire, who was also an athlete who presumably got occasionally tended to by medical staff, had an undiagnosed congenital heart defect…
I find that incredible, since they likely scanned him head to toe, each year he had to pass his physical. And I know LeBron didn’t cheap out on his kid’s doctors either.

The point, is it could happen to a lot of people.

Things like stress, drugs/alcohol, and smoking cigarettes can exacerbate the symptoms.

In addition, in the past 20 years or so, we’ve come to understand that women present differently, in regards to cardiac issues. Therefore, unfortunately, they are occasionally misdiagnosed, or not given the attention a male with chest pain would…

Things are changing, but we still miss a LOT of things.

SQ, if she needed a heart transplant, she likely avoided a long ,slow, death, full of misery…
And yes, it was likely really fast.

In addition, in the past 20 years or so, we’ve come to understand that women present differently, in regards to cardiac issues. Therefore, unfortunately, they are occasionally misdiagnosed, or not given the attention a male with chest pain would…

Yes, she showed early signs of a heart attack but she thought it was the flu. She was throwing up a lot and had pain in her shoulder. Refused hospital but that would not have helped. Thrombosis and all that.

She smoked, and only really drank soda.

I appreciate you. I guess I had it in my head that it would have been so obvious, which is why I wanted to see the report.

^I remember vividly, when you first posted about it. I know you were initially thinking you could have maybe had a different outcome if you hadn’t been taking a nap.
I can very much understand, your possible desire to make sure that you couldn’t have helped.

As I said, considering the circumstances, I think you have been steady making lemonade out of lemons…

I read Ricks.
The nurses verbally told me what was wrong, but I wanted to read the official report.

My answer would be very situational. If the cause of death was well-understood, then I probably would not want to read something so clinical describing my loved one’s body. If I were desperate for answers, then I would probably work through it meticulously.

I have a medical background so it wouldn’t bother me and I’d want to read it. My brother suicided by gun and I read his.

Absolutely.

Basically I wanted to translate the nurses plain language to compare to how it read in the medical report.

If it’s relevent, sure.

I wish I had read my brother’s autopsy. I know he OD’d. They literally found him with what he was shooting up with. And I know that meth usually causes death by cardiovascular failure.

But my sister is in denial. (Despite having a background in medicine.) And I wish we had gone through it together to work through that.

@raum….maybe that’s what she needs to feel to get through it.

I am so sorry about your brother. ♡

I read my brother’s. He died suddenly, when he was 55, while going to the bathroom, He was a methamphetamine user, and I wanted to see the toxicology report. They found meth in his system, but his heart gave out from years of abuse.

My father passed after moving to hospice and my mom stopped the dialysis. he died 72 hours later. My mom died after hospice from dementia. Neither of them had an autopsy, the cause of death was evident.

Not really. Both my parents are in their late 90s, and I am pretty clear on their health issues. It’s not really an important thing to me what specifically stopped working.

If they were younger – 50s-70s or less, then I would be interested.

Thanks, Dutch. That’s what my therapist said to me as well.

I think everyone copes with trauma in different ways. I want more information. Some people want less. Maybe that is what is at the heart of this question.

Hugs for you too, Zen.

^I think that’s a very astute observation.
The only constant, in the equation posed, is that the decision is being made by the individual. Individuals, are complex, and really we are all a unique personality.
Another variable, could be timing. If you asked a person if they wished to view the findings 10 times, they may answer yes or no, just depending on the randomness of such circumstances.

When I was 19, my very close friend was murdered.
I was in the like ICU waiting room, which was reserved for just his closest family and friends.
We were updated occasionally, as he was alive when he arived, and each stage of the surgeries, down to the details of the decision his parents made to “pull the plug,” on my young friend…
At some point, when his parents were just signing everything, they inadvertently made him a donor. (This was a medical University.)
They performed surgeries on my brain dead friend, to practice fixing him, and running anesthesia. I hope they all learned from it, and that ultimately helped many others…
My friend had these unusually blue eyes. It’s difficult to explain…but I could have picked him from any crowd by his eyes.
His mother, at one point I guess wanted to see those unique blue eyes on last time. Unfortunately, his eyes were gone. It was a miserable situation…
I can’t un-know, what I’ve known for years…
I would say, that I learned from the entire experience, including the morbid details…
The details of his injuries, made it just way more sad. To me.
At hos funeral they had shovels for people to throw dirt on him. (Never did that before or since.)
I took a turn shoveling, because I felt obligated to contribute in this way. As I threw redish dirt on my friend’s casket, it dawned on me that I was literally putting dirt between us, and it made me sick…..

When I replay the day of his funeral in my mind, I can remember how everyone acted.
Some crying their eyes out.
Some angry.
Some confused.
Some oddly stoic.
No two, acted the same.
No two dug, the same, or showed similar body language while digging. There were at least 100 people there (mostly teenagers) and no women dug.
I am admittedly ignorant, of if that was just coincidence or a “thing.”..
If it was voluntary, no women took a turn digging, for whatever reason. There wasn’t a sign, that said no girls. I don’t know…

Over time, the whole thing aged differently, within all it affected.

To a degree, it taught me, how to endure such things, as life is full of death…

People are definitely complex individual. And how we carry our trauma is always changing.

I’m sorry you lost your friend at such a young age, Grim.

After dealing with 4+ deaths, the examiner reports I’ve read are benign. They don’t go into gory detail. They are very short. (None of these were autopsies. Just official pronunciations of death from nurses who are sent to do that. I’ll address autopsies down below).
None of these deaths were suspicious, either.
If I had to deal with a suspicious death, then I’d want to read every detail of the autopsy report, in order to let go of, or harden, my suspicions.
One person I loved died of dementia. There was no autopsy, and I wish there was. I am very curious about any visible anomalies in her brain that existed.
I’m not the type of person who “holds on”. I don’t save ashes. I don’t save mementos. I don’t remember the dates of the deaths. I don’t commemorate anniversaries of deaths.
(I hold onto the pain sometimes, but that’s all in my head and heart. I don’t do physical things).