Death Calls

I wade waist-deep into the ocean to reach a body floating face down in the local harbor. <br /><br />Police first responders and onlookers quietly watch from the shoreline but blood splotches and marks in the sand suggest that something awful has happened here.<br /><br />In 1981 while practicing medicine in a small community on the southern coast of British Columbia Dr. Robert Crossland is asked if he'd be interested in becoming the local coroner. Like many Robert has thrilled to the crusading adventures of TV coroner Wojeck and Quincy M.E. so he takes up the challenge. But soon he is to find just how far these TV programs are from the real world of a community coroner.<br /><br />During the following twenty-three years Robert will investigate and report on more than 600 sudden unexpected deaths in his community and in the surrounding ocean lakes forests and mountains. In each case he must establish not only who has died but when where how and why. As a member of the community himself he often finds himself personally connected with those who have died. Many of the deaths are natural of course but a surprising number are exceptional due to complicated startling unforeseen and sometimes even astonishing circumstances and findings. <br /><br />These are the stories of more than a hundred of these remarkable often horrifying events. <br />They happen in homes at work sites during recreation or while travelling in boats planes or on roads. Some of the deaths prove controversial and Dr. Crossland participates in inquests that lead to changes in policies or procedures that reduce the risk of further deaths ... or sometimes heartbreakingly make no difference at all. Sudden death is always disturbing and in vivid pithy engaging anecdotes based on his case files and notes Dr. Crossland shares with readers the who when where how and why.