Highest Numbers in Autopsies Recorded in 2022  

News Five has received the data on autopsies conducted for 2022 by the National Forensic Science Service. According to the data, there were autopsies done for one hundred and twenty-three homicides, eighty-eight gunshot injuries, ninety-seven fatalities, thirty drownings, thirty-seven suicides and two hundred and thirty-eight natural deaths. NFSS Director Gian Cho says that 2022 recorded the highest number of autopsies.

Gian Cho

Gian Cho, Director, National Forensic Science Service

“Last year we did the most number of autopsies that we ever did in any year – over six hundred, almost six hundred and ten. It shows that more deaths are being reported to undergo a thorough investigation. Roughly for the total number of deaths for the year that undergo a medico legal post-mortem examination is about a quarter, about twenty-five percent, which is comparable to other countries like Australia and some of the other countries with advanced death investigation systems. So in terms of statistics, the number of deaths that we capture as medico legal deaths versus the deaths that are clinical and that the hospital or a private physician would write the death certificate, we are doing fairly well or pretty well in terms of the percentage. But yes, the majority of those, over six hundred post-mortems that we did were natural deaths. And that’s what we see every year, natural deaths; people die suddenly – heart attack, stroke, some underlying, undiagnosed condition.”