It's anything but dead at the Sangamon County Coroner's office.
Jim Allmon's job is an important one, but it gives some folks the willies. His job is to determine the cause of death for everyone who dies outside of a hospital or hospice setting.
"I tell people all the time – and it may sound a little corny – but I truly believe we are helping people. .... These people that we unfortunately have to meet every single day are in need of somebody to take care of them and get them through the worst day of their life," Allmon said.
Soon the office will move into its new digs – the former State Journal-Register building, adjacent to the current county building on Ninth Street. Bodies, rather than newspaper pages, will be laid out there.
"The facility probably won't be done until the middle of November, but we are going to have a state-of-the-art facility, and we are have all these counties that are going to be bringing their people here," he said.
Under Allmon's leadership, the office has a forensic pathologist on staff and will be performing autopsies for counties throughout the state, which he said will lead to additional revenue streams for Sangamon County.
"They'll be paying us morgue fees. They'll be paying us to use our X-ray equipment. They'll be paying us for autopsy assistance fees. They'll be paying for our physician, who's our employee, to do the autopsies. We charge them when we pick up (cadavers) and do transportation," he said.
The county now pays Springfield Memorial Hospital about $100,000 a year for use of its autopsy suite and equipment, he said, so that will also represent a cost savings once the work can be done on the county's property.
Rich Pitchford works part-time for the coroner's office picking up and transporting bodies.
"Jim is somebody who's concerned about families of the deceased," he said. "I've always been impressed with just how connected he is with the families and how he is always reaching out to everybody – whether it be the family members of someone we just picked up, or people in the community. He educates kids in school about forensic science. He's always available."
