Autopsy trade is carving up their business

There is very little to show what happens behind the walled industrial compound owned by Vidal and Vicki Herrera in Los Angeles except for a small poster of the Grateful Dead rock band.

The only clue an ordinary observer might have is when a white Hummer pulls in or out of the driveway, the words “1-800-AUTOPSY” in bold black lettering on its side.

“They say dead men tell no tales, but I disagree,” says Vidal Hererra, a veteran autopsy technician.

He should know. With his wife Vicki, Hererra owns and creates 1-800-AUTOPSY, a business that provides private post-mortem examinations and sees tales from the dead everyday like drug abuse, poisoning, violence and medical malpractice.
 
“If you don’t die peacefully, you die unexpectedly — you’re shot or you’re stabbed or overmedicated,” said Vicki Hererra. “Who’s going to talk for you? Families can’t do it. Only a doctor and the autopsy technician can do it for you. That’s it.” Hererra’s business is one that might give many the chills, but he insists it’s a business with a red-hot future.

Lesser autopsies in hospitals

Before, autopsies were normal procedure for deaths in US hospitals. It was mainly to understand the full cause of the patient’s death. But growth of health care plans has brought cutbacks and these days only two to five percent of deaths are being autopsied in hospitals, compared with about 50 percent of deaths in the 1970’s.

But the demand remains unchanged. Hererra notes that family members want to know why their loved ones died.
 
“Death is, in fact, a recession-proof business — it just never stops,” said Vidal Hererra. The U.S. death rate is currently 2.4 million people a year, and it’s projected to increase to 4 million as the baby boom generation starts to die off, he added. Right now, he says his business is pulling in revenue of $1 million a year, and it’s growing.