Overdose deaths overwhelm ME, coroner offices

Associated Press

HARTFORD, CONN.

Soaring numbers of overdose deaths are adding to woes already plaguing medical examiner and coroner offices, resulting in a shortage of places to store bodies and long delays in autopsies and toxicology testing.

The Connecticut medical examiner’s office has considered renting a refrigerated truck to store extra bodies because its storage area has neared capacity at times. In Wisconsin, the Milwaukee County medical examiner’s office sometimes has to put bodies on Army-style cots in its refrigerated storage area because it runs out of gurneys. The Hamilton County coroner’s office in Cincinnati has a 100-day backlog of DNA testing for police drug investigations, largely because of increased overdose deaths.

Medical examiners and coroners say overdose deaths are adding to a strain on their offices that already includes a surge of urban violence, inadequate facilities, budget problems and the shortage of forensic pathologists qualified to perform autopsies.

“There are many, many parts of the country that have substantial problems,” said Dr. David Fowler, Maryland’s chief medical examiner and president of the National Association of Medical Examiners, referring to medical examiner and coroner offices. “I think the drug overdoses have substantially increased the problems.”

A record 47,055 people died from drug overdoses in the U.S. in 2014, according to the latest figures from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The number was up 7 percent from 2013, spurred by large increases in heroin and opioid painkiller deaths. Reports indicate overdoses continue to increase.

There are about 500 forensic pathologists in the country, but at least 1,000 are needed, according to forensic-science groups. A major cause of the shortage is that many medical students are opting for higher-paying jobs in regular pathology jobs in hospitals, Fowler said.

Medical examiner and coroner offices generally investigate all violent deaths in their jurisdictions, as well as suspicious and unexpected deaths that don’t occur in hospitals. The most notable changes resulting from inundated offices have been longer waits for families to learn how their loved ones died and delays in criminal investigations and court cases, medical examiners say.

Kathleen Errico, of Haverhill, Mass., lost her daughter, Kelsey Grace Endicott, to a suspected heroin overdose in April. “It’s lousy for the families,” Errico said of waiting for test results. “I know some other folks that are very, very angry. They’re very upset about the wait. ... But I don’t really see what more you can do with so many overdoses happening so quickly.”