County’s probable overdose deaths climb to 14 since Friday
Fourteen probable overdose deaths occurred over the last four days in Milwaukee County, putting the county on pace to set its highest-ever number of fatal overdoses in a year, according to the medical examiner’s office.
All but one of the victims were over the age of 30, but other than that there were few common threads in the cases, according to medical examiner reports.
One was a 64-year-old woman prescribed 115 Oxycodone pills on July 17. At the time of her death Saturday, only one remained. Others were a 36-year-old boyfriend and 47-year-old girlfriend found dead by the boyfriend’s 14-year-old son at a Residence Inn in the 600 block of North Plankinton Avenue that they had been staying in since April.
Another was a 21-yearold man who had “been very depressed,” according to his mother. The victim had recently recovered from a “very serious overdose,” according to investigators who found a Suboxone wrapper and drug paraphernalia at the scene.
The string of cases began Friday and continued through the weekend with the last one being reported late Monday morning.
Officials have not released information related to the exact causes of death. They’ll know more when toxicology reports are returned, but that will take four to six weeks.
Team Havoc, a West Allis-based organization that works with addicts, said that three of the overdose deaths may have been related to cocaine laced with fentanyl. The reports from the medical examiner’s office appeared to confirm that.
A 58-year-old female victim tested positive for cocaine, fentanyl and opiates upon admission to Ascension Columbia St. Mary’s Hospital, according to the reports.
And investigators noted that three other victims were in possession of an “unknown white powder” or a “white colored powdery substance.” Two of those were the couple found in the hotel.
But several others were found to have prescriptions for opioids.
The medical examiner’s operations manager, Karen Domagalski, said the office received an unusually high number of fatal overdoses over the weekend.
“This is a very unusual spike. If current trends continue, Milwaukee County will have 420 overdose deaths this year, which is the highest ever,” Domagalski said. “In 2017 we had 401 overdose deaths, which is the highest recorded number of drug deaths in Milwaukee County.”
Some of the cases occurred over a short period of time: Sunday, medical examiners responded to three in less than an hour, and Saturday, they responded to five in less than five hours.
The majority of the deaths occurred in the city of Milwaukee. The medical examiner’s office said that the deaths do not appear related, except for the deaths of the couple at the Residence Inn.