“Do the math,” says Lance Emberling with the Union County Coroner’s Office. “You have a damn good chance of dying if you are using drugs right now.”
The math is this, says Emberling: for several years Union County averaged seven overdose deaths a year. In 2020, Union County had 10 overdose deaths.
On Wednesday, Union County saw its eighth overdose death of 2021. Emberling said a ninth individual died with meth in her system, “but we don’t know yet if that’s what caused her death.”
“There is a problem,” Emberling said, noting that seven of the last eight coroner’s office investigations have involved overdoses.
He said it is “getting old, going out there and talking to the families, telling them what happened.
“I wish I could take them on a scene and they could see what goes on when this happens, but that’s never going to happen,” Emberling said.
In May, officials at the coroner’s office reached out to the Union County Health Department.
“We told them, ‘There is something going on here and we need to hit this area with information,’” Emberling said.
He said it is important to let the health department know because “by the time it gets to us, it’s too late.”
Lindsay Fetherolf, drug overdose prevention coordinator for the Union County Health Department, said the health department took the warning seriously. She said the health department began targeted ads and an information campaign.
“The number one thing we would say is ‘Don’t use alone,” Fetherolf said. “If you are going to use, have Narcan available to use with these other individuals.’ We also want people to know there is help available in the community. We would also encourage family and friends to have Narcan on hand to potentially save an individual’s life.”
Fetherolf said there are a variety of ways for members of the public to get access to Narcan, noting that they can go to the Health Department, 940 London Avenue, Suite 1100; Decker Fire Station, 16300 County Home Road, or Wings Support and Recovery, 729 S. Walnut Street.
She also said there are community task forces working to identify patterns and ways to help.
“We are working with the coroner’s office closely to see if we can identify trends,” Fetherolf said. “But right now, it is just not showing itself to us.”
Emberling said it is frustrating because there is no identifiable pattern.
“I honestly don’t know why this is happening. I just don’t know,” Emberling said.
He said it doesn’t seem like a “bad batch” of any one drug caused the spike. In fact, he said it is just the opposite. He said the overdose deaths have been spread out, most happening at least a week after the one before it. He said the drugs involve Fentanyl, Xanax and other prescription medications, meth and even aerosols.
Officials said the county has seen an increase in the number of overdoses related to prescription drugs. They said prescription drug overdoses were common early in the opioid crisis but had waned until recently in Union County.
Emberling said the overdose locations pretty closely mirror population density, with the ages ranging from 21 to 66.
“It just doesn’t make sense why there is an uptick,” Emberling said. “We just don’t know why.”
Officials said they have some precautions in place if there is a particularly fatal dose of a specific drug in the central Ohio region.