Families suffer due to medical examiner shortage

One of the most difficult things about losing her son was not knowing why. Rosanne Carruthers needed to understand how an active, outdoorsy man with no apparent health problems could drop dead at 34. Carruthers, a nurse, performed CPR after her son, Neil, collapsed in their suburban Boston home. For more than a year, she wondered: Was there something more she could have done? And were her daughter and her grandchildren at risk, too? For the Carruthers family and others across the country, long delays in receiving death certificates and autopsy reports from medical examiners can not only compound grief, but also can create financial hardships by holding up life insurance payouts and other benefits.