The bodies of those dying from drug overdoses are piling up in Ohio's most populous county, potentially forcing the need for another morgue, ABC News reported.
"Our folks are tired," Franklin County coroner Dr. Anahi Ortiz told ABC. "It's straining our capacity.
The county has asked hospitals to hold bodies longer so it can process the influx of overdose deaths, getting 10 deaths in one day and about 30 total from Jan. 31-Feb. 9, per the report.
"We've had to switch the freezer over to a cooler in order to accommodate more [dead bodies] in our facility, and we have several times been to the point where we're thinking of calling for a temporary morgue," Ortiz told ABC.
"If someone dies at a hospital, we've had to ask hospitals to hold on until we have spots open," she added.
Ohio has seen a decline in overdose deaths, but that has not been the case in the populous Franklin country, which contains the Columbus metro area and has seen a 10% increase between 2018 and 2019, ABC News reported.
"About 75 to 80 percent of our overdose deaths involve fentanyl or a fentanyl analog," Ortiz told ABC.
"Fentanyl has just gotten into everything. We're seeing fentanyl in cocaine, fentanyl in methamphetamine, we've seen black market oxy with fentanyl in it. It's just everywhere."
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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