Fayette County coroner releases first-of-its-kind report on deaths in the county
UNIONTOWN, Pa. (KDKA) — The Fayette County Coroner's Office has released a first-of-its-kind report breaking down deaths in the county over the last 23 years.
The report breaks down total cases, including natural and accidental deaths drug and alcohol overdoses, traffic deaths, suicides and homicides. Each category then breaks down deaths by month, year, age, race, location and drug substance.
Coroner Dr. Bob Baker said he's hoping to use the data to reduce the number of preventable deaths.
"I just kind of had this vision to be able to utilize this data and then to make a change," Baker said. "We can find and use this on these outreach programs to go into the neighborhoods and to try to figure out, why are we having these cases happening in these specific areas?"
By using the data, Baker said new outreach programs and partnerships can be created to target those areas.
For example, ages 30-41 saw the most fatal overdoses in Fayette County in 2023. While all townships in the county were impacted by overdoses, the report shows Uniontown had the most followed by Connellsville.
"We look at the sex of the person that's overdosing, we look at the age, but then we also look at the zip code or area that they're from. So, we can make a more targeted effort," said Melissa Ferris, executive director of the Fayette County Drug and Alcohol Commission.
Ferris said the commission is also focused on reducing stigma in the county.
"There are still some individuals who don't think that substance use disorder is a disease. They think somebody would use a drug and they can just stop and that's not something that the person can do," Ferris said. "Anybody can be addicted to substance. It doesn't discriminate. So, that's why it's all over our county."
It's something Ida Long knows all too well after losing her daughter to a drug overdose in 2020.
"April the 19th, I got the phone call no mother ever wants to get they found Hannah unresponsive," Long said. "There is nothing that would have predicted to me that my daughter would be one of the statistics, nothing."
She said her daughter Hannah was 36 years old when she died. She was a mother of two.
"I begged her, but heroin is such a convincer. She said, 'I don't know what you're talking about. I'm not using.' And at that point, she was well under 100 pounds, and she was very street-worn," Long said.
Long is an advocate now in Fayette County and works with the Fayette County Drug and Alcohol Commission.
"I don't want to see other mothers go through what I've experienced. I want to see a difference in Fayette County," Long said.
"We're seeing a lot of younger individuals that are using substances. That's one of the reasons we're making it a little more targeted effort," Ferris said.
With the new coroner's report, new outreach programs are already being built in hopes of preventing fatal overdoses. One new program about to kick off is called Reality Tours, which targets students in schools.
"I feel very motivated that this will be a way to educate our youth, so that they can see the consequences of utilizing these illicit drugs and what happens and to make the choices to not use," Baker said.
Parents are also involved in the program to learn how to talk to their children.
"It's an uncomfortable conversation for most people. So, we want to demonstrate that to give them all the tools that they need to both start their conversation when they leave the event," Ferris said.
"Knowing that if there's anything that I can do to make a difference, distributing Narcan or working with the county to get a program started, to touch base with our sixth graders, our seventh graders, to give them education, and parents to know that here are some of the things that you can do that could make a difference. That's basically my purpose is right now," Long said.
Ferris said they're also focused on finding ways to get Narcan everywhere in the county.
"We have made a concerted effort to try to reach a lot of the different areas in the county, the far-reaching areas that don't have a whole lot of services or access to services, to be able to get them Narcan and drug disposal bags so you can put your medication in and safely dispose of," Ferris said. "And then we've started to distribute xylazine and fentanyl testing strips in our county. It's not to test urine, it's only to test substances. People can stop into our office or they can send a request through our website, and they would be able to ship that to them."
In addition to preventing drug overdose deaths, Baker said the data can be used to pinpoint things like deadly traffic days. He said last year, September was the deadliest month, specifically, on Sunday afternoons.
"Knowing that, we want to make sure that we try to educate everybody to be very aware in the month of September," Baker said.
He said he hopes other counties will also create similar reports and build on what he's doing in hopes of preventing deaths.
"My goal is to group a lot of our other entities in the community and the county together so that we can help change and make our community safer and better for our generation and generations of the future," Baker said.
Fayette County District Attorney Mike Aubele told KDKA-TV that he appreciates Baker's efforts and said he's part of the positive change in Fayette County.
