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July 9, 2016, John Voket
Dr James Gill, Connecticut’s chief medical examiner (ME), logged 729 opioid-related overdose deaths in 2015, and by the end of March, he had already logged 208 more to either heroin, the powerful painkiller fentanyl, or some combination of the two.
If that upward-trending number of overdose deaths continues, the ME believes Connecticut could see well over 800 deaths by year’s end.
And while a nagging stereotype of a destitute individual overdosing on cheap heroin in an urban shooting gallery still persists, the reality is quite the opposite for more and more state residents, including Newtown’s Kovack family.