Last year was a busy one for the Bartholomew County Coroner’s Office.
The number of fatal drug overdoses, homicides and deaths from accidents and natural causes that the Bartholomew County Coroner’s Office investigated last year reached levels not seen since at least 2018 even though none of those deaths were directly caused by COVID-19, according to the coroner’s office annual report.
Overall, the coroner’s office investigated 182 deaths in 2020 — or about one case, on average, every other day.
By comparison, the number of deaths investigated by the coroner’s office hovered around 140 during each of the previous three years.
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The coroner’s office also ordered 43 autopsies last year, up from 34 the previous year.
Bartholomew County Coroner Clayton Nolting said while it was difficult to attribute the increase in numbers to the pandemic, one thing was clear — “it was a rough year for everybody.”
“I don’t want to say (it was) an odd year, but I don’t know how else to put it,” he said. “Because, obviously, you can see we were absolutely swamped at the coroner’s office just by the sheer volume of numbers and reports.”
The Bartholomew County Coroner’s Office does not investigate every death in the county, Nolting explained. Coroners have jurisdiction over all homicides, suicides and accidents and investigate natural deaths that are sudden, unexpected, unwitnessed or suspicious, or if the person who died didn’t have a physician.
Most deaths in Bartholomew County are certified by an attending physician, Nolting said.
The coroner’s office generally does not investigate COVID-19 deaths because people who die from the coronavirus are typically under the care of a doctor.
Deaths increasing
The increase in coroner cases in Bartholomew County last year mirrors similar trends seen across much of the United States, where deaths in general appeared to be rising — even deaths not directly or indirectly linked to COVID-19 infections.
U.S. deaths due to cardiovascular issues, diabetes and dementia have all significantly increased since February 2020, compared to averages seen from 2015 to 2019, according to preliminary estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Deaths due to Alzheimer disease and dementia since February 2020 were nearly 45,000 higher than the five-year average, followed by deaths caused by high blood pressure, which were 28,673 above average, and diabetes, which were 18,053 above average, federal records show.
Drug overdoses deaths in the U.S. also accelerated during the pandemic, with over 81,000 deaths from May 2019 to May 2020 — the highest number of overdose deaths ever recorded in a 12-month period, according to the most recent figures from CDC.
Before COVID-19, local officials had been hopeful that they were turning the tide in Bartholomew County.
But the spread of the virus caused many in-person recovery meetings in the community to be postponed or canceled during parts of last year, and some local homeless shelters and treatment facilities were temporarily closed or had restricted access, which may have made it harder for people to continue with their treatment and recovery.
That was then compounded by financial stress, social isolation and a spike in unemployment that had been seen since the Great Depression, which local officials said set the stage for a surge in relapses.
Overall, there were 31 drug overdose deaths in Bartholomew County in 2020, up from 24 in 2019 and the highest since at least 2015, according to the coroner’s office report.
Most of the drug overdoses deaths involved multiple drugs, though fentanyl or fentanyl analogues turned up in about 55% of overdose cases, according to the coroner’s office report.
Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that is 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine and is often illegally produced and sold on the streets for its heroin-like effect, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Fentanyl analogues are drugs designed to imitate the effects of fentanyl.
Other drugs involved in overdose deaths last year included methamphetamine, which was found in 15 of the 31 overdose cases, and benzodiazepines, a class of drugs that includes Xanax, were found in 10 cases.
“It’s not the good kind of record, but it was a record,” Nolting said, referring to the number of fatal drug overdoses last year.
A total of 120 people died from drug overdoses in Bartholomew County from 2015 to 2020, though the pace of overdose deaths has slowed so far this year compared to 2020.
From Jan. 1 to Feb. 25, there had been one confirmed and one suspected fatal drug overdose, compared to 10 at the same point last year.
The coroner’s office also reported 125 natural deaths in 2020, up from 89 the year before, and 40 deaths from accidents, an increase of five from 2019.
There also were five homicides in Bartholomew County in 2020, compared to a combined three from 2017 to 2019 — an increase that Nolting characterized as “absolutely unfathomable.”
No child deaths
There was some good news, however.
The coroner’s office did not investigate any child deaths, including infants, last year, down from six in 2019 and five in 2018 and 2017.
While most infant deaths do not fall under the jurisdiction of the coroner’s office, Nolting and his team investigated five infant deaths in 2019 and one in 2018.
“The only thing that I can say we can celebrate at the coroner’s office is that we had zero child deaths in 2020,” Nolting said.
Suicides also decreased last year, according to the coroner’s office report.
“Last year, we did see a significant decrease in suicides, which I think a lot of people thought that our suicide numbers were going to go up due to the pandemic,” Nolting said. “Fortunately, they went down. There were 16 in 2019 and only 12 in 2020. Obviously, that’s 12 too many, but the numbers were going down.”
However, suicides in Bartholomew County are up so far this year.
There were four suicides in the county from Jan. 1 to Feb. 25, up from one suicide during the same stretch in 2020, Nolting said.
The coroner’s office released the 2020 report in hopes that “fewer families will come to experience the same grief by our sharing statistical data to assist those who work to reduce preventable deaths.”
