PORT ANGELES – Clallam County’s accidental death rate and overdoses appear to be headed to record territory this year.
County Prosecuting Attorney Mark Nichols, who is also the county coroner, says 2021 is so far showing a marked uptick in the number of accidental deaths.
“In 2021 year to date, we’ve had 33 accidental deaths in Clallam County. If we look back at the last several years, we know that in 2020 we had 28 accidental deaths during the entire calendar year. We had 23 in calendar year 2019, and we had 24 in calendar year 2018. So the fact that we’re sitting at 33 and we’re not even in September, has me concerned that we have quite a bit more accidental death occurring in calendar year 2021 than other years and again quite a bit of this is occurring on our highways and roadways.”
Additionally, Nichols say there have been 18 overdoses so far in 2021. That’s on pace to surpass last year’s 19 and could be one of the highest overdose rates in recent years. Nichols says the county has turned around overdoses with use of opioid-reversing drugs like Narcan. But now there appears to be other drugs that are raising the death rate.
“There is, there’s quite a bit of fentanyl. We’ve never stopped having a significant problem with methamphetamine, in Clallam County. There appears to be a little more mixing and matching occurring. As I look at tox lab results that come back that reflect what was in a decedent’s blood, it’s not uncommon that we will find opioids, methamphetamine, Fentanyl, of course, is an opioid but that will be present as well, alcohol and perhaps marijuana on top of it and so quite a concoction of drugs and alcohol and too much for the human body to withstand.”
Nichols says the suicide rate is 12 so far in 2021. Last year there were 25 suicides in Clallam County.