Cause of Death

It’s a given that everything, be it mountains, oceans, rivers, plants, animals, and of course, people die. No matter what it is, at some point, it will cease to exist. If birth and death are the only constants, why are we so interested in what caused a death? Why people seem to be fascinated with the cause of death rather than simply accepting the fact that it, him or her, is dead is a mystery. Morgan couldn’t answer that question, but he was glad people had such a morbid curiosity.

Morgan spent his life working with dead people. Being a coroner in a large city with an overabundance of gang violence, drug and alcohol addiction, plus a plethora of naturally occurring maladies, kept his schedule full. The legal system needed to know how a victim died. Even the obvious causes — gunshot, stab wound, clubbed to death — all needed to be listed and categorized for the courts.

Grieving relatives wanted to know why poor uncle, grandma, father, cousin, or friend passed away at such a young age. After all, he was only 85. For these people, Morgan would put on his best all-knowing white coat demeanor and explain that poor Uncle Jim died of a pulmonary embolism, or an abdominal aortic aneurism, or numerous other “isms”. The bereft relatives would walk away with tears in their eyes wondering, what did he say, or that sure sounded bad? I hope he didn’t suffer.

Morgan secretly enjoyed leaving people bedazzled by his mastery of medical terms that sounded impressive, but meant very little to the average person. Imagine your mechanic telling you that your car stopped running because the fuel line had an embolism, instead of saying the line was clogged with dirt. Or maybe your tire has an aneurism rather than it has a bulge in the sidewall. Maybe a dirty air filter should be called pneumoconiosis.

The part of his job Morgan disliked the most was testifying in court. He would testify that the victim died of blunt force trauma to the posterior portion of the skull possibly inflicted by a round, heavy metal object. The prosecutor would then reduce his carefully crafted sentence to, “In other words, doctor, the victim was hit in the back of the head with a hammer, caving in his skull.” Morgan would be forced to say, “That’s correct.” This exchange would be followed by, “Nothing further, your Honor.” Not Morgan’s finest hour.

While walking in the park one day, Morgan slipped on a banana peel that someone had carelessly tossed on the ground. He slipped and fell, hitting his forehead on a boulder, killing him instantly. The new coroner said the cause of death was blunt force trauma to the frontal cortex of the brain. The actual cause of death was not watching where he was going.