Working Among The Dead

Mark Zaleski

The Press-Enterprise

Riverside County Sheriff Coroner technician April Smith pauses a moment before moving several bodies around in the cold storage crypt. 'The day can get grueling at times' said Smith.<p> It's gruesome work that few people ever think about. These men and women who are employed by the Riverside County Sheriff's Department are deputies, but the calls they go on aren't the typical robberies or drug busts. They take on the responsibility of picking up dead bodies, identifying them and then informing the families. It's one of the many emotional tasks employees at the coroner's office do every day. Pathologists and coroner technicians come face to face with accident victims, suicide victims and violent crime victims during examinations and autopsies to determine the causes of death. And then the cycle begins anew the next day. They toil these thankless jobs day after day dealing with the dead.

Mark Zaleski, "Working Among The Dead," in POYi Archive, Item #34515, http://archive.poy.org/items/show/34515 (accessed November 23, 2024).