Connecticut Medical Examiners Overwhelmed By Overdose Deaths

The Connecticut medical examiner's office has been thinking about renting a refrigerated truck. That's how bad it is.

Heroin is cheap and intensely addictive, which is the reason addicts are overdosing at an alarming rate. I've talked with addicts who are still using, and addicts who are in recovery. The pull of heroin is so strong, that addicts don't care what might happen to them, because the profound high is "everything".

From a stories in the NewsTimes and the Norwich Bulletin comes the sad story that medical examiners in Connecticut, and across the country, are literally running out of room to store the bodies of overdose victims, not to mention the long delays in toxicology results and autopsies.

A record 47,088 died from drug overdoses in 2014. That number is up 7% from 2013. The problem is so severe in Milwaukee County, Wisconsin that medical examiners have been forced to place bodies on army cots that are placed in their refrigerated storage areas. Add to that the shortage of forensic pathologists in the country. There are 500 in all, but 1,000 are badly needed.

A mother in Haverhill, Massachusetts lost her 23-year-old daughter to an overdose, and was told it would take 4 to 6 months to complete her toxicology report. Connecticut pathologists are so overworked, that they might be in danger of losing their accreditation because they're performing well over 325 per year.