When someone dies under mysterious circumstances, what happens next? Most states in the United States have laws that require certain types of deaths be investigated:

  • injury
  • delayed complications of injuries
  • poisoning
  • infectious complications
  • foul play
  • people who die with no attending physician

­If the death meets any of the above criteria, it must be reported to the local medical examiner or coroner for investigation and a legal determination of the cause of death. The main tool of this investigation is the autopsy.


Photo courtesy Sacramento County Coroner's Office
A body awaits examination in an autopsy bay.


The process of examining the dead to discover how they died is the subject of many TV shows and movies, but the facts aren't always so clear-cut. In an interview with Atlanta's Fulton County Deputy Chief Medical Examiner Eric Kiesel, HowStuffWorks cut through the mystery of this often misunderstood process and learned the details of the preparation, procedure, and tools needed to perform an autopsy.

Meet Dr. Kiesel
Dr. Kiesel is the Deputy Chief Medical Examiner of Fulton County. He has been a forensic pathologist since 1985. Here's a short resume:
  • attended Louisiana State University Medical Center in New Orleans
  • completed an internal medicine internship in the Tufts program at New England Medical Centers
  • completed two years of anatomic pathology residency training in Seattle at the University of Washington affiliated hospitals
  • completed a one-year forensic pathology fellowship as the assistant medical examiner of King County in Seattle
  • completed a one-year, sub-specialty training in forensics
  • was the first Washington State Forensic Pathology Fellow
  • was brought in as an acting coroner in Snohomish County
  • assisted in creating legislation to convert Snohomish County from a coroners system to medical examiners system
  • served in Snohomish County from 1987 to 1997
  • moved to Atlanta, Georgia, in September 1997 and began working in the Fulton County Medical Examiner system
When asked why he wanted to be a medical examiner, Dr. Kiesel replied:
    I started off looking into environmental pathology. I have a Ph.D. in analytical chemistry. I became friends with the medical examiner in Seattle, and when an opportunity arose to do a fellowship, I took that opportunity and found it quite fascinating, and have stayed with the job.