The King County medical examiner's office is overrun with victims of fentanyl overdoses.
"The Medical Examiner's Office is now struggling with the issue of storing bodies because the fentanyl-related death toll continues to climb. Obviously, they have finite space in the coolers they use and that space is now being exceeded on a regular basis," Seattle-King County Public Health Director Dr. Faisal Khan said last week, according to KTTH.
Khan, who gave his statement during a Board of Health meeting, said that fentanyl deaths have wrought havoc on Seattle and have grown to a worsening epidemic over the past few years.
He then added that he expects the city's final 2022 fentanyl death toll to be double that from three years ago.
"When the final review of fatal overdoses is completed in the upcoming weeks, I fear that 2022 will set another heartbreaking record for fatal overdoses in King County. It will more than double the number of lives lost compared to just three years ago in 2019."
According to the King County Prosecuting Attorney's Office, so far, in 2023, at least 35 people died from a fentanyl overdose in the county, Fox News reported.
A public health official later told KTTH that the office is looking into long-term options for holding more dead bodies.
"We have options for temporary morgue surge capacity when our census count gets high, including storing decedents on autopsy gurneys and partnerships with funeral homes," a public health spokesperson said. "We're exploring longer-term options for adding more capacity."
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