Deputy coroner links up with the living and dead
It was typical for Donna Francart to go to bed with her make-up on and hair styled; her clothes nearby and her tactical boots by the door. Seconds count when duty calls, and death doesn’t care if it’s the middle of the night.
I’ve Seen Dead People: Diary of a Deputy Coroner gives readers a rare look inside the mind and heart of one of society’s most mysterious – and to some, macabre – professions. For nearly nine years, Francart was a deputy coroner who worked medicolegal death investigations, which are those involving suspicious, violent, unexplained or unexpected deaths.
Lacking access to structured debriefings, Francart turned to journalling as a way of privately unpacking the profound grief she faced and preserving her own mental wellbeing. As she did, she found herself in a conundrum of perplexing relationships with both the living and the dead.
In I’ve Seen Dead People, she shares her unfiltered thoughts and emotions as she navigates a world most of us cannot imagine – a world Francart was drawn to out of a desire to help others during their darkest hours.
“Every single one of us on this earth deserves to die with dignity and respect,” she said. “If our lives are robbed from us by the hands of another, our voices must be heard, to tell the truth and seek justice. Every one of us was a mother, a father, someone’s brother, sister, aunt, uncle, cousin. Everyone is someone, and that is how I handled every single case that I was on.”
I’ve Seen Dead People also chronicles everyday moments, as Francart tried to provide as normal an upbringing as possible for her two sons. Along the way, they all learned to share their space with the many spirits that Francart encountered, and to embrace the beauty of life.
“One thing is guaranteed, you will walk away with your eyes opened a little more, your heart more giving and your life more cherished,” she added.
Francart was born and raised in the Midwest. She served as a deputy coroner for nearly nine years beginning in 2007 and assisted with more than 2 000 death investigations. She now shares her life with her two adult sons, their two better halves and one granddaughter.
I’ve Seen Dead People is her first book and is being adapted into a screenplay by Frank Burmaster and Gary Revel, with plans to develop it for a feature film. Revel owns Jongleur Books, a publishing company associated with Mother Nature Festival Live Inc, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit whose mission is to stop global warming. – Citizen reporter