COEUR d'ALENE - If Kootenai County Coroner Robert West could change one thing about his elected position, he said, it would be to tack on some more requirements and training to run for it.

That's because the job involves more than most people think, he said.

"Both my wife and I have had people say to me, 'What does a coroner do? Say "They're dead" and walk off?'" the 74-year-old said with a chuckle. "Not exactly."

It's more a frenzy of investigating the circumstances of the roughly 1,000 deaths Kootenai County sees each year, and determining when situations warrant autopsies, conducted by medical examiners in Spokane.

"It's a complex and medically challenging job. It's very interesting," said West, a retired surgeon who obtained his medical degree at the University of North Dakota and Harvard Medical School.

"You incorporate what you know, what's going on in the community and what you've experienced."

About to retire as coroner after holding the office since 1984, West is well acquainted with the frustrations of gleaning details from bodies that can no longer tell their own stories.

"Because of logistics, not every unexplained or unanticipated death is autopsied," he said.

The coroner usually orders about 70 autopsies a year, he said.

Deciding when to order one is a delicate process, he added, and it has to be.

The coroner's office only has roughly $100,000 a year in its budget, and autopsies can cost up to $3,000 apiece.

"There's simply not enough manpower or money to have a knee-jerk reaction to death investigations and say, 'Autopsy everybody,'" West said. "We can't do that."

If the cause is blatant enough - someone has a long history of medical problems, or drugs or alcohol were clearly involved - he probably won't pursue it further.

But investigating a body is sometimes necessary, usually due to the nature of a crime or the uncertainty of the cause of death.

"There are certain automatics," he said. "If somebody is shot to death in a coffee shop robbery, we're going to get an autopsy."

Sometimes more questions have to be asked first, though, he said.

"You need to have a healthy skepticism for any and all deaths," he said.

He remembered one crime scene where the details initially appeared sordid enough to warrant an autopsy: A body in a motel, a gun in the bedside stand, a suitcase stuffed with medications.

But tracking down the man's Veterans Affairs medical records revealed a multitude of medical problems that pointed to a natural death, he said, and no need to look further.

"Initially you would have bet dollars to doughnuts this person needs an autopsy," he said. "I hope whoever replaces me continues that curiosity and skepticism. Asking additional questions."

Scoping out crime scenes to determine if the cause of death is clear is just another part of the job, he said.

Voices and sirens blared out through static on the police scanner in his office Monday, which he keeps on to give himself a heads up.

"If that thing starts chattering and I hear about a second ambulance on the way and a victim still to be retrieved out of the pond, I'm not going to go to Post Falls to have lunch, because it's not going to happen," he said.

Employees at hospitals, nursing homes, hospices, and funeral homes also act as eyes and ears for the coroner's office, he added, and give him a call when something looks fishy.

"If something doesn't look right, they have to stop, back off, and let us take a look at it," he said.

There's pressure to be right, he said. Discovering true cause of death is crucial for agencies to pattern health and crime trends, which can also effect funding for certain areas of government.

One of the biggest challenges is when there are two stories and the corner's office ends up in the middle, he said.

He gave the example of a case from 2008, when a prostitute killed a man who had picked her up and threatened to kill her after driving her to a remote location on Hayden Creek Road.

She was found bloodied and half naked at a farmhouse, and her alleged assailant later found dead from multiple stab wounds.

Despite the woman's account that she was raped and attacked - as well as the prosecutor's decision not to pursue murder charges against the woman - West has his doubts.

"I'm not convinced to this day that he assaulted her," he said, pointing to her drug use and prior felonies for pulling a knife on someone. "You at least have to ask the question, is this a rapist who got killed and got what he had coming? Or was this a woman who knew what she was doing?"

The key is to harvest as much information as possible, he said, without being swayed to prefer one side.

"I approach the coroner's job as the ombudsman advocate for the deceased," he said. "It's not my job to make sure every drug dealer gets prison time, or every bartender who over serves and lets someone drive home drunk."

Born in Bowman, N.D., West worked as a medical officer in the Navy and a surgeon in Vermont after obtaining his medical degree in the 1960s.

He moved to Coeur d'Alene in 1969 and opened a private practice that year. He served as deputy coroner from 1970 to 1984, when he decided to run for coroner.

West continued his surgical practice on the side until 2003, he said, when the coroner duties started consuming too much time.

"It was a different time (when I first started)," he said. "Now there's a lot more population, a lot more of everything you could possibly think of."

The county coroner position will be on the ballot this November. No one can officially file candidacy until March 11.

The only requirements are to be 21 years old, a U.S. citizen and a Kootenai County resident for at least one year.

The job is considered full time, with a salary of $61,535.

It's not for everyone, West warned, especially with the constant encounters with death.

"You just have to keep your head on straight," he said. "Death's a part of living."