It is not hard to die in the Sanctuary.
When this happens, one has to get out of in the the woods and look for a wandering healer to resurrect and get back to the body.
It would be nice to have a healer or a resurrection Ahnk also in the Quests area so that one does not have to exit the Sanctuary to get ressed.
Oh well...........
I'd settle for spawn that wasn't quite so crazily packed into Sanctuary. There are serious balance issues with the number, variety, and respawn frequency of monsters when you enter the mountain pass area itself.
If someone can survive in Sanctuary, they are no doubt a very good fighter type, and some people will say they actually like it that way. I think it's a bit much for something that was just intended to be a quest for spellweavers to get 2 extra spellweaving spells.
That being said, if you learn the location of the ladders that take you to the much less populated underground level in there, and make sure your character has an Undertaker's staff, it shouldn't be that difficult to retrieve your corpse once you get resurrected.
Retrieving personal belongings some monster looted (EG backpacks etc) well that's more difficult of course, but if you are really careful with what you leave on characters you take there in the first place that shouldn't be a problem.
One last thing: I always thought the inner Sanctuary area had a wandering healer, anhk, or some object inside where you coud resurrect. Are you sure you're going deep enough into Sanctuary? You'll know you're there, the walls disappear, there should be a quest NPC or two, and monsters can't follow you into the area, and I'm pretty sure there's some grass there too.
One thing you should definitely do is take some friends, Sanctuary definitely is not a place I'd recommend trying to solo.