We meet the people who have to deal with them.
Most of us rarely think of the sort of fatalities which impact on other people as ever touching our own lives, but this author points out that these things can easily touch any of us and the people we love. None of us are immune to chance and fate. Any day, disaster, can come out of left field in the most ordinary or normal of circumstances and alter our lives forever.
Sales talks to the people whose job it is to deal with the unexpectedly dreadful results of these events and their aftermath. She interviews people who handle the circumstances we think can never happen to us and our loved ones, and explains what they do for the victims and the survivors after the fatalities.
We hear from policemen, priests, nurses, those who work for the coroner’s office, and those whose role it is to comfort the survivors and try to make them understand what they must come to grips with, perhaps from a different perspective. These people handle what the rest of us find too difficult every day and in such a way that brings some understanding and closure.
The author re-visits the Lindt Café seige, the collapse of the village at Thredbo, the ghastliness of Port Arthur and more. She talks to the loved ones of the victims and finds out how it is that they can get their lives back together again and eventually move on.
It is an enlightening book.
- By Lee Stephenson
