Request By:
Mr. Leslie J. Blackburn, Jr.
Blackburn Funeral Home
161 Broadway
Versailles, Kentucky
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: Charles W. Runyan, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
A family called the county ambulance service for a member of their family. Upon arrival the ambulance service informed the family that the patient was deceased and that they were required to call the coroner, even though the family informed them that the deceased was under the care of a physician and had seen the physician the previous day.
Your question: Were they [ambulance service] required to call the coroner? Assuming the attendance of a physician within 36 hours prior to death, the answer is no. See KRS 72.030. Here the person simply died in the home, and we assume there was nothing in the situation upon which the ambulance service personnel could base a belief that the death was attributed to crime, suicide, drowning or other unnatural cause. The request for a coroner must be a request accompanied by some indication of belief that the death was other than a natural one. Any other construction of this statute [KRS 72.030] would open the door to abuse of the power of the coroner, and perversion of the traditional functions of the office. Historically the function of the coroner has been to aid in the administration of criminal justice by inquiring into the circumstances of violent or suspicious deaths, and the object of an inquest has been to obtain information as to whether death was caused by some criminal act.
City of Ashland v. Miller, Ky., 283 S.W.2d 195 (1955) 196.
You ask whether the county ambulance service can make runs with assisting people who are not certified as medical technicians. You are speaking of certification by the Kentucky Certificate of Need and Licensure Board. See KRS 216.405. The answer is that under KRS 216.405(6)(a) if the county, through appropriate action of fiscal court, has elected not to be covered by this chapter, such licensure provisions for ambulance service personnel will not apply. Of course the county must meet the applicable requirements of KRS 65.710 through 65.730.