Paula Case knows the job of a medical examiner wasn’t meant to be easy. Since 2021 she has driven up and down seven counties of western North Carolina investigating deaths that are sudden, violent, unexpected or simply unattended by a physician.
Like all local medical investigators in the state, Case, a registered nurse, is a part-time employee appointed by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. She is paid $200 per case whether it’s a natural death at home or a violent and complex homicide. The state supplies her with a toxicology kit, but she has to pay for everything else, from the gas in her car to basic personal protective equipment like goggles and the latex gloves she buys on Amazon.
Case does it because it’s a calling, she says, and a service to the families of the deceased. It means responding to the scenes of accidents, overdoses, suicides, and murder all hours of the day, every day of the year.
But on Thursday, Case and other medical examiners in Buncombe County told supervisors that they will be joining approximately 150 of the state’s medical examiners across 20 counties to take a coordinated, indefinite vacation beginning June 15. Their aim, they said, is to draw attention to pay that hasn’t increased in more than a decade…