The Westmoreland County Coroner’s Office has released their annual report concerning all the cases they investigated in 2018.
The report says that the coroner’s office investigated 2,875 cases in 2018, which is its highest caseload in the history of the office. However, the report shows the lowest number of accidental drug overdoses since 2014. Accidental overdoses went down by 37 percent from 2017’s totals, and Fentanyl-related overdoses also went down by 40 percent. Heroin-related overdoses saw a slight decrease, only 4 percent from 2017’s numbers, and prescription-opioid related overdoses went down 28 percent.
