Author Terry Pratchett once wrote, "No one is actually dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away."
This story is about the first of those ripples, when people find out about the death of a loved one. The coroner is the last person you want to see knocking at your door. Coroners say telling people someone has died is easily the hardest part of the job. Yet it’s often overlooked. There's no standardized training.
Peoria County Coroner Jamie Harwood said he was dreading a visit he was about to have with a mother he knew. A year earlier, Harwood had informed the woman her son had died in a car accident. Early one morning late last year, he was back at her door after another son died.
“It was just a heavier doom that I felt that I had to do the same thing again to the same family,” Harwood recalled. “It was devastating, absolutely devastating. They knew when they saw me knocking on the door, they knew why I was there at 7 o’clock in the morning.”
Harwood had a career in nursing before becoming Peoria County coroner in 2016. He also has a background in critical care. Even for someone who handles death for a living, Harwood calls that one of the worst days of his career.
“It was worse because I was there again and they knew I was there and so I think they just carried the first tragedy into the second one,” Harwood said.”
Death notifications are a part of the job for coroners. Tim Ruestman has been the coroner in Woodford County 25 years and counting. When he gets word of a death and he must tell the family, Ruestman goes through a mental checklist before heading out.
“Every time when I am on my way I start thinking, how am I going to open this conversation? What am I going to say? What are the facts? Is that a case that potentially we need to approach the family about maybe being an organ or tissue donor,” Ruestman said. “Those are things you want to know, so I kind of rehearse it in my mind if you will before I get there.”
Ruestman said you never know how the family member will react to being told their loved one is gone.
“It doesn’t always go that way of course, but there’s certain key elements of notifying of a death that you do want to hit in,” he said.
Most coroners go in twos. They bring along a deputy or someone from law enforcement or clergy for backup and additional support for the family and the coroner.
Jamie Harwood reminds himself to always speak with the victim's family at eye level. He said you can't soften the message with euphemisms.
“You have to say words like ‘John Smith has died’ or ‘Your daughter Joan Jones has passed away or has died,’” Harwood said. “You have to use words that really bring truth to the matter as opposed to some façade that they could lead to believe something different other than what has truly happened.”
You can be direct while also showing empathy to help someone realize they are not alone, according to Livingston County Coroner Danny Watson.
“To every person the death thing is a very personal thing and they think that nobody really knows how they feel and that’s probably true,” Watson said. “But I can still empathize in what they are going through because I’ve been through it multiple times."
Watson said he was orphaned at age 13 and except for a sister his family is gone.
Ultimately, coroners say it's critical to show compassion in whatever way possible.
“I do hug, I’m a hugger,” McLean County Coroner Kathy Yoder said.
Yoder has been the McLean County coroner since 2014 after a two-decade career in nursing. Yoder says her knack for caring for others goes all the way back to grade school as a hospital volunteer at what is now Advocate BroMenn Medical Center in Normal.
“I was a little candy striper. I think it was in the seventh grade. As a little volunteer I’d pass waters around and I thought that was great,” Yoder said. “All my little Halloween costumes as a little girl was a nurse and I took care of my dollies and that’s what I did. I wanted to take care of others.”
Now that means taking care of people after someone they love is gone. Yoder says her office is the voice for those who no longer have one, by helping families process everything that must be done after a loved one's death, including organ donation, the autopsy and funeral arrangements.
Most death notifications happen in person. Yoder said in rare cases she has had to notify family by phone if they don't have close relatives nearby or her office does not know where they live. She says those cases are often tragic in their own way.
“The ones over the phone have the tendency to know it was coming or if it’s an older person sometimes they haven’t had contact with the decedent in years,” Yoder said.
Coroner’s Chaplain
Yoder also has some help few coroners have when comforting grieving families. He's not a deputy coroner. But this chaplain has witnessed his share of tragedy.
“I guess I approached Kathy and I interviewed for a job that didn’t even exist,” Stuart Blade recalled.
Blade was a veteran Bloomington firefighter. He said he felt called to help other families grieve.
“If we can provide one area that provides a little comfort in a process of what’s going on for that family, that’s an amazing thing that we get to do,” Blade said.
Blade knows something of heartbreak. Six years ago, he and his wife lost their daughter Hope to a birth defect, seven hours after she was born. They have four other children.
About four and a half years ago Blade talked with Yoder about becoming a coroner's office chaplain. Yoder gave it some thought and then, weeks later, came one of the biggest tragedies in Bloomington-Normal history. A plane crash in April 2015 near Bloomington killed seven well-known men on their way back from an NCAA basketball championship game.They're referred to as the "Redbird 7" for their ties to Illinois State University.
Blade was working with a Bloomington Fire Department unit that arrived on scene that morning looking for the plane through the heavy fog.
“Just the amount of notifications they had to make that morning, going from home to home and visiting seven homes,” he recalled. “Kathy (Yoder) called me that day. It was immediately (she said), ‘This is happening, we are moving forward,’ and that is the day I was brought on the team.”
Yoder said even though she had trained for a mass casualty event, nothing prepares you for the physical, mental and emotional burden of the real thing in helping the families of the survivors cope.
“That went on for a long time and then, it’s all about them, it’s not about me, but I do know those were long days and trying to give 100% to the families if not more.
“That took an emotional toll on everyone involved and I’ll never forget it.”
A month after that incident, Blade became an ordained minister. Earlier this year, he took his calling a step further and left the fire department to join Eastview Christian Church in Normal, where he is the associate pastor of small groups. In his role as coroner's chaplain, Blade said it's less about talking than it is about listening.
“I’m not a therapist, but you are trained about the art of just being quiet and I think there’s a lot of value in that,” Blade said.
Blade said he likes to get people talking about favorite memories of their just-departed loved one.
“I think that’s one of my favorite moments of doing this,” Blade said. “Don’t forget those moments.”
Blade said he's careful not to lead with his faith, partly because you don't know what religion a person does or doesn't have.
“I still don’t hesitate to ask the question, ‘Can I pray for you?’ But then I enjoy reading and some of the books that I’ve read are different cultures, finding out what does it look like when somebody of a different faith, what is the process they take when somebody of that faith passes away,” Blade said.
Blade says another reason to steer clear of mingling church and state is that he is a county employee.
Social Media
Woodford County Coroner Tim Ruestman said technology has made death notification more difficult in recent years. Sometimes the family finds out in other ways, maybe through a social media post or an online photo of a crash scene. Ruestman said that puts additional pressure on coroner's staff to get to the family first.
“It just feels like you are under the gun now,” Ruestman said. “Once there’s a motor vehicle accident, let’s say, you need to make sure you get to that home and get that family notified because people may drive by with a cell phone and inadvertently take a picture and post something and the next thing you know a family members sees it on Facebook.”
A change in state law several years ago allows coroners to determine a cause of death on their own without having to convene a citizen jury. Ruestman said inquests often forced grieving families to relive a tragedy and delayed death benefits and closure.
“Some of these counties are being inundated with motor-vehicle accidents, let’s say, and they would take two or three months before they could get their inquests set, get their jurors called in and that whole time the family did not have copies of that death certificate,” Ruestman said. “That puts a young mother that lost her husband and has three children, she needs those death certificates immediately so she can get on with her business.”
How Coroners Cope
Coroners try to become "one" with a grieving family, although that takes an emotional toll over time. McLean County handled more than 1,300 deaths last year, nearly four per day. Kathy Yoder said about one in five deaths required an investigation. Coroners also need someone to help them cope.
“I have a great husband, how about that?’” Yoder asked.
Yoder is married to Bill Yoder, a circuit judge in McLean County.
“The one good thing is he understands my job and he understands what I do, so the dialogue is wonderful there,” she said. “He’s very supportive and I’m also very supportive of his career, so I think that is actually a great working relationship.”
Tim Ruestman in Woodford County said he too looks to his family for comfort when he can.
“I give my kids extra hugs sometimes,” Ruestman said. “I remember shortly after my wife died of a brain tumor, my very first coroner’s call was a young man that died of a brain tumor and I thought, how lucky is that?”
Ruestman said separating public life from private is difficult when his small-town community has known him as the bearer of bad news for so long.
“Probably the most difficult thing for me is I’ve done this for so long if I will call someone on the telephone or when my dad was running for political office, I would knock on a person’s door and say, ‘Hi I’m Tim Ruestman’ and this look on their face would just be like, ‘Oh no, what’s he going to tell us?’ I don’t always bring bad news.”
There is an upside as well to being a small community coroner. Livingston County's Danny Watson lives in Flanagan, population 1,000. Watson said not being a stranger has helped.
“Since most people know me somewhat it makes things a little easier, rather than a total stranger, they know who is coming to the door and they know why,” Watson said.
Peoria County Coroner Jamie Harwood said he learned long ago you can't dwell on the job.
“In the moment, emotionally, physically and compassionately, but when I leave that moment, I leave the moment, I don’t carry that moment with me the rest of the day,” Harwood said. “My training in nursing has taught me that there’s another family waiting maybe in another room, maybe in another place. They are going to need you.”
Harwood said it's important to convey compassion not only to grieving families, but sometimes to the community as a whole. Peoria County has had several notable deaths in recent months, including the state's attorney and the county clerk.
No Training Required
The style of public death announcements differs from coroner to coroner. Some simply try to dryly report facts; Harwood goes further. He sometimes posts phrases on social media like "It is with a heavy heart that we report someone's passing" and "I am deeply saddened to announce someone's passing."
Harwood said it seems like the right thing do to when a community is in mourning.
“I’d like to think the public deserves the information that I give them and sometimes I have to refrain from writing their obituary, but I want people to know they are important and they have families.”
Harwood added that's a style he developed on his own.
“The funny thing is when you become coroner, they don’t give you a media relations class, you don’t get templates for how to send out media releases or anything like that. A lot of it has been a growth experience for me.”
In fact, there is no real death notification training for coroners at all. Many have on-the-job experience from previous careers in medicine or funeral homes. But elected coroners in Illinois and most states don't have to have training or certification.
Woodford County Coroner Tim Ruestman is a funeral director. He said the soft skills are something a coroner simply has to have.
“There is a system there, the electoral system,” Ruestman said. “If you have a coroner that obviously can’t perform the duties, they are not going to be around very long. The empathy and the compassion part I think it’s God given. You are either born with it or you’re not.”
Ruestman said it can be hard to processes the never-ending cycle of grief coroners face, though he takes comfort in making sure grieving families know where they can turn for help.
“I see a lot of these (emergency) departments do debriefing, destressing, things like that,” Ruestman said. “I have learned over the years to put a positive spin on it as I am really helping these people at the worst time of their life.”
Most coroners including McLean County's Kathy Yoder say the job reinforces the truth that time is precious.
“You never know when your last day is your last day,” Yoder said. “So enjoy your life, enjoy your family, love your friends, because you never know, but you can’t worry about that.”
Empathy also does not stop with the fact of the death. Coroners are resource centers for grief pamphlets, places of worship, and just being available to them 24-7. Coroners say help for grieving families can go on for weeks or months after a death.
Cook County is the only county in Illinois that doesn't have a coroner. It has a medical examiner, which the county appoints.
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