O-R settles lawsuit after coroner releases drug overdose data
Trista Thurston/Observer-Reporter
Overdoses from 2015 to 2017 in Greene County
Trista Thurston/Observer-Reporter
Ages of overdose victims from 2015 to 2017 in Greene County
Gender makeup of overdoses from 2015 to 2017 in Greene County.
Trista Thurston/Observer-Reporter
Types of drugs in system from 2015 to 2017 in Greene County
WAYNESBURG – The Observer-Reporter has settled its lawsuit against the Greene County coroner’s office after receiving detailed statistical information about the fatal overdoses in the county since 2015.
The coroner’s solicitor, Greg Hook, provided the newspaper Tuesday with a report about the deaths from accidental overdoses in 2015 and 2016, and newly elected Coroner Gene Rush released a similar document Wednesday with information about the overdoses last year.
The names of the victims and other personal information were withheld in both reports for privacy.
The newspaper filed its lawsuit in July against former coroner Gregory Rohanna, who lost re-election in November, seeking access to his 2015 and 2016 annual reports after he denied a reporter from reviewing the information. Colin Fitch, the newspaper’s attorney, filed a certificate to settle and discontinue the case Thursday in Greene County Court.
Liz Rogers, the newspaper’s executive editor, called the settlement a victory for transparency, but also an important step for the community to better understand and solve the opioid crisis.
“I’m pleased that we finally prevailed in a fight that should never have happened. Now we can share with our readers the information that they deserve to have,” Rogers said. “The community needs to know the extent of the opioid epidemic and be able to measure whether the programs or actions addressing the problem are actually working.”
Of the 45 victims over the past three years, 28 were men and 17 were women.
The statistics show the ages of the 14 people who accidentally overdosed in 2015 were distributed in a bell curve, ranging from people in their 20s to 60s. Four people in their 40s died that year.
The numbers skewed older in 2016 when 19 people died of accidental overdoses, with six people dying in their 50s, seven in their 40s and five in their 30s. Only one person in their 20s died that year.
Last year, when 12 people died of accidental overdoses, the victims were younger. Four people in their 20s died, but the average age of the victims was 38.5 years old.
The statistics show the epidemic peaked in July 2016 when four people died, the most of any month in the three years. The 19 accidental overdose deaths that year also put the county at one of the highest averages in the nation with 51.2 deaths per 100,000 residents.
Greene County did not experience a single overdose death in the final two months last year, a similar pattern experienced in neighboring Washington County when there was only one death in the final 33 days of 2017.
The synthetic opioid fentanyl was found in the blood of 10 victims in 2016 and eight last year. One person who died in 2017 was found with carfentanil, an elephant tranquilizer that is suspected in the deaths of three people in Washington County last month.
More than one-third of the drug deaths in 2015 occurred in the Waynesburg zip code. That number doubled in 2016 with nearly half of all overdoses occurring in that zone.
Rush, who took office in January, promised greater transparency in his campaign and indicated he wants to share information with the newly expanded Greene County Opioid Task Force. The group is scheduled to hold its first orientation meeting later this month, county Commissioner Blair Zimmerman said. Zimmerman, who lost two brothers to drug addiction, said the detailed statistics, such as those found in the annual coroner’s report, are just one piece to a larger puzzle in solving the epidemic.
“There are a lot of different folks (involved) and I want to see what they bring to the table,” Zimmerman said. “If they have ideas to save an individual or a group, I’m all for it.”