43
Trumbull coroner’s statistics back up theory about fentanyl arrival in Trumbull County
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
A top narcotics investigator says the most recent statistics from the Trumbull County Coroner’s office back up his theory that the arrival of the prescription drug fentanyl on the menu of local drug addicts has contributed to the spike in Trumbull overdose deaths.
The stats indicate 14 of the 35 people who died from drug overdoses from Jan. 1 to April 20 died either from fentanyl or heroin mixed with fentanyl.
The problem was especially acute in early April, when Jeff Orr, commander of the Trumbull Ashtabula Group Law Enforcement Task Force, sounded the alarm after a week in which six people died in Trumbull County of overdoses. Four had fentanyl mixed with heroin or other drugs.
Orr said he suspects when someone dies of fentanyl, it’s because they were misled by their dealer into thinking it’s something else.
Dr. Humphrey Germaniuk, county coroner, said the appearance of fentanyl started out slowly in January, with just one death case, then grew to two in February and reached seven in April.
“They may not know what they are selling,” Germaniuk said of dealers. That can be deadly, he said, because fentanyl is 20 times more powerful than heroin.
“There’s no warning label, no list of ingredients,” he said. “Sometimes they don’t even know what they’re getting.”
Both Dr. Germaniuk and Orr said they are frustrated that it takes eight weeks for the toxicology results to come back from a state lab to confirm that the person died of a drug overdose.
“Some of the labs have been crushed with cases,” Dr. Germaniuk said. “The state of Ohio has done nothing to attract and retain toxicologists,” he said.
Orr added, “We should not have had to wait eight weeks for toxicology results.” Having to wait that long to know what killed someone makes it difficult to investigate the origins of the drugs.
“It’s like you shoot someone and eight weeks later you find the body,” Dr. Germaniuk said of the delay. “By eight weeks, phones have been cleared, [suspects and witnesses] have disappeared.”
Still, more police departments have started to treat suspected overdose deaths as crime scenes so that law enforcement can hold drug dealers accountable for their actions.
A 22-day span from March 27 to April 20 was especially deadly, according to the statistics, with 13 overdose deaths in 25 days.
The most recent list also confirmed Dr. Germaniuk’s estimate in April that overdose deaths were on pace to reach a record level if they continue. There would be more than 100 this year at the present rate. The record high was in 2007, when there were 64. His records indicate that 16 more deaths through Monday are likely to be from ovedose.
A spreadsheet from Shelley Mazanetz, chief investigator for the coroner’s office, says there were 10 accidental overdose deaths in January, seven in February, eight in March and at least 10 in April.
All but one of the 35 victims was white, with 11 being residents from Warren, six from Howland Township, four from Niles, two from Girard and two from Hubbard, and single deaths of residents of Braceville Township, Leavittsburg, Cortland, Salem, Liberty Township, Fowler Township, Newton Falls, Southington Township, Mineral Ridge and Champion Township.
They ranged in age from 24 to 61 with an average of 42.1. There were 21 males and 14 females with the average age of the females being 40.5 and 43.2 for the males.
Of the 35 deaths, 23 were from either heroin alone (4) or a mixture of heroin and other drugs (19). Other causes were fentanyl (4), methadone, opiates, hydrocodone with cardiac arrhythmia, oxycodone and cocaine.