Friends and co-workers surprised Adirondack Health pathologist Dr. C. Francis Varga with a retirement party Thursday. After 48 years with the hospital, his last day is Friday. (Enterprise photo — Griffin Kelly)

SARANAC LAKE — “As soon as I hung up the phone, I felt so bad because I just lied to Dr. Varga.”

That was said by Essex County Coroner Frank Whitelaw, who called the Adirondack Health pathologist Wednesday night to report a death: A woman in her 70s had died in North Hudson while her daughter was out, and Whitelaw needed Dr. Constantine Francis Varga to do an autopsy the next day at noon.

This was all a lie.

Varga agreed because he is always accommodating, Whitelaw said.

“I created quite the elaborate story and made it believable, apparently,” Whitelaw said.

When Varga arrived, there was no cadaver supine on an autopsy table. Instead, there was cake, lobster bisque and longtime friends and co-workers.

After 48 years of working in the pathology lab at what is now the Adirondack Health hospital group, Varga works his last day Friday. His friends and co-workers celebrated his long career with a surprise party Thursday.

As other doctors, administrators and hospital staff ate lunch, they reminisced with Varga and cracked jokes. He told the story about how he arrived for his interview at Placid Memorial Hospital in 1970. Instead of driving or taking a bus to the North Country, he flew his personal airplane. He wound up landing at the Frontier Town amusement park in North Hudson and taking a taxi to Lake Placid.

He soon traded in his plane for a pair of skis.

“The sensation I got skiing was the same I got flying my plane 6 feet above the ocean,” he said. “It was that dangerous feeling.”

Whitelaw previously worked for the state police as a crime scene investigator. Once he retired from that position, he started working as a coroner. He said Varga has taught him a lot.

“This has been the best free education I could’ve gotten anywhere,” Whitelaw said. “Dr. Varga’s been doing this longer than I’ve been alive. He has a wealth of knowledge. In my career with the state police and also now as a coroner, when you attend autopsies, he is very open to questions and offers information. I got a free course in anatomy, physiology and pathology working under him. It’s been an honor, and I don’t know that I’m going to be able to find that anywhere else.”

The Adirondack Health Board of Trustees passed a resolution praising Varga on his retirement, saying he “always provided prompt, accurate, timely and responsive service.” Some of the positions he’s held at the hospital include president of the Medical Staff, chairman of the Infection Control Committee and chairman of the Safety Committee.

After nearly half a century of working here, Varga said he’s enjoyed the career and never had any animosity toward his co-workers.

“It’s been good working here,” he said. “I never found my work onerous. It was always interesting.”

Laboratory Office Manager Sue Dwyer added, “and the patients never complained.”

“No, but sometimes their lawyers did,” Varga said.

While many doctors perform autopsies on patients who die in hospitals, counties contract with certain doctors to do autopsies for unattended deaths, in which people are found dead. Varga has long filled this role, performing the examinations at Adirondack Medical Center in Saranac Lake. For the last five months, since Dr. Leonardo Dishman of Malone retired in March, Varga has been the only doctor who did such autopsies for Franklin and Essex counties. Now unattended deaths in Franklin County will be investigated at Plattsburgh’s Champlain Valley Physician’s Hospital.

Varga’s name frequently appeared in the media for determining the cause of newsworthy deaths. Occasionally he made global news. Last year after American bobsledder Steve Holcomb — an Olympic gold medalist — died in his bedroom at Lake Placid’s Olympic Training Center, Varga determined that the cause of death was a mix of alcohol and sleeping medication. In 1995, Sergei Grinkov, a Russian pairs figure skater who had won Olympic gold medals, collapsed on the ice in Lake Placid while practicing with wife and skating partner Yekaterina Gordeyeva. Varga determined the 28-year-old died of a painless heart attack, brought about by untreated high blood pressure and blockage of two coronary arteries.

Some health issues have affected Varga in the past few years. These days, he walks with a limp, a little bit of a slouch and a cane in one hand.

“If I could, I’d continue working,” he said.