Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
Death is not an issue most people want to talk about, much less deal with on a day-to-day basis.
But for the county coroner and deputy coroners, death is a daily part of life.
"It's a constitutional office," said Larry Ladd, the Kosciusko County coroner, Tuesday. "We're charged with investigating all deaths in the county, especially those unexpected, unexplained deaths."
Those deaths can be the result of an accident, fire, homicide or suicide or deaths of children.
Half of the coroner's office's cases are natural deaths where a person may have been under a physician's care but the physician is out of town or unavailable and a determination for cause of death is needed.
Because the coroner's office can't predict how many people will die in any given year, when it comes to the budget process, Ladd said, it isn't easy.
"There's a big fluctuation. You just don't know from one year to another how many cases we'll have."
And most people, he said, don't even know what the coroner's office does, making the budget process a little more difficult at times. "Death is still something people don't like to talk about."
Ladd and the four deputy coroners - John Hoppus, Sandra Ladd, Mike Wilson and chief deputy coroner John Sadler - are on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
"There's never really a time someone is not readily available and in the county," Ladd said.
When Ladd or a deputy coroner gets paged by the Kosciusko County Sheriff's Department, the sheriff's department provides them with as much information as they can to help the coroner's office know how to respond. For example, if they are responding to an accident with three victims, the coroner's office knows they will need more help than with a one-victim accident.
"We go by what type of scene we think we'll run into. When we arrive on a scene, we try not to go into a scene with any preconceived notion of what we will find. We keep an open mind," Ladd said.
Once on the scene, the coroner's office is provided with all information available. They will do a quick walk-through, including looking at the body. If the death was a natural one, most of the investigation will include getting a medical history of the deceased from the family if they are on the scene, including any illnesses the person had or medications they may have been taking.
On accident victims, law enforcement usually is on scene before the coroner. "We're the last ones to get there." The coroner's office starts their investigation into the matter at square one.
One misconception Ladd said people have is when the coroner's office calls the time of death. For the time of death, "we'll use the time we arrived." If the person died at 3 p.m., but the coroner's office does not arrive on the scene until 3:30 p.m., the time of death will be 3:30 p.m. Ladd said the coroner's office, as the certifier of death, uses a documented time.
After the death scene has been investigated, the coroner is then responsible for transporting the body and the victim's personal belongings. Often the coroner or his deputies use their own vehicles, the same ones they later will travel in with their own families.
At the county budget hearings this month, Ladd requested the county council allow for funds in his 2005 budget for the coroner's office to purchase a vehicle. The council told Ladd to see the commissioners about buying a vehicle.
"I felt that is something that was probably needed and important and something the council should consider," Ladd said of his request.
Twenty or 30 years ago, before HIV, AIDS and the various kinds of hepatitis, the coroner's office may not have even used gloves because those diseases "weren't in our vocabulary." But times have changed. "We've become a lot more sophisticated and see the need of recovering" the scene.
"I think it's naturally expected of that person, being the coroner, to clean up (the scene) as much as possible," said Ladd. Cleaning the scene may include collecting bodily fluids and tissue and transporting them to the hospital. "That goes right in our vehicle."
Funeral homes in the county often will help transport bodies, but if the integrity or the continuity of the case, especially that of a homicide, may be jeopardized, Ladd said, the coroner's office is best left to transport the body to Fort Wayne St. Joseph Hospital, where the autopsy will be performed.
Even if there's not a homicide or accident, timing is very important. Out of respect for the deceased, Ladd said, he doesn't want a body to remain where the person died for an hour or so while they wait for the funeral home. That doesn't mean the funeral homes aren't willing to help; they are, but it's just another time delay, and it's not proper for a person to lie on a road or somewhere waiting for transportation, he said.
As Kosciusko County continues to grow, the number of deaths will grow and so will the coroner's workload.
"I just think it's important to have the office have its own transportation," said Ladd.
As a rule of thumb, Ladd said, it is expected 1 percent of the population dies per year. Of that 1 percent in Kosciusko County, Ladd said, 10 percent of those cases (70), are investigated by his office. Of those 70 cases, autopsies are performed on 20 percent of them. As the county grows, though, those numbers will grow too.
Ladd said his office already has seen a growth in drug overdose cases and suicides. The negative attitude toward autopsies has dwindled in that now more people want autopsies done.
"The coroner's office has the right to overrule anyone regarding whether or not to do an autopsy." When a family doesn't want one, it makes the case more difficult, but if the coroner can't convince the family to let one be performed, the coroner can require the autopsy anyhow.
The coroner's office also may suggest to the family tissue/organ donation of a victim, which is now more commonly accepted. And more frequently the coroner's office draws blood from the victim for paternity cases. "It seems like we're getting a lot of those."
In some cases, a father dies and the baby isn't born yet so the paternity needs established. In other cases, the paternity of older children never was established. "Almost, it's a given anymore," Ladd said of the blood draws. "That's just how the office has changed. It's almost standard procedure."
When the coroner's office takes possession of a deceased individual's property, the next of kin must be found.
"Sometimes we'll have to work with foreign governments to establish next of kin rights or ship the body."
Emotionally, the work of the coroner's office can be draining. But Hoppus said he deals with it through a good network of people to talk to. Ladd discusses cases with his wife, Sandra, one of the deputy coroners. They also may deal with their emotions by talking about it with law enforcement or the EMS. Ladd said they don't get used to it, but do become a little immune to it. But the feelings still are there.
"After all is said and done, I've gone into a corner and cried. That's the emotional relief for me," Ladd said. "... Just to vent, talk it over, is just what everybody needs."
