Coroner’s office on the front line in fight against opioids

Newsrooms across the commonwealth have spent years documenting the opioid crisis in their own communities. But now, in the special project State of Emergency: Searching for Solutions to Pennsylvania’s Opioids Crisis, we are marshalling resources to spotlight what Pennsylvanians are doing to try to reverse the soaring number of overdose deaths.

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(Bedford) — The coroner’s office in Bedford County is on the frontlines of the fight against the opioids epidemic.

“We need to track down what drugs are coming through the county,” he said. “We try to do our part to get information to law enforcement so they can try to get a hold on it,” said Coroner Rusty Styer.

The number of drug overdose deaths in Bedford County increased this past year by more than 50 percent and Styer said an autopsy is important to determine what drugs led to the death.

Styer said new drugs like carfentanil, which can be deadly to the touch, have sparked increased awareness at the scene of a suspected overdose death. “There’s more training for the teams that come across (a scene) to be as cautious as they can,” he said.

Styer recently released his 2017 statistics, which show his team investigated 264 total deaths during the year. Styer said 18 of those deaths were related to drug overdoses, an increase from 11 the prior year.

Thirteen of the overdose deaths were ruled to be multi-drug, one of which included the deadly drug carfentanil that authorities say is 100 times more potent than fentanyl and 5,000 times more potent than heroin.

“Most overdoses are multi-drug,” Styer said. “Rarely do we find one drug in them.”

Four overdose deaths were attributed to fentanyl, while one was to oxycodone.

Fourteen of the overdose victims were men, while four were women, Styer said. The average age was 36.