DuPage Coroner: Number Of Opioid Deaths 'Startling'
(WBBM Newsradio) -- "Startling" is how the DuPage County coroner describes the number of deaths his office is seeing from opioids – in particular, from a combination of heroin and fentanyl.
In 2015, DuPage County had seven deaths connected to opioids.
Last year: 32.
"The number of people that we see that are in their teens and twenties are staggering. The majority of them are under thirty," says Dr. Richard Jorgensen, the DuPage County coroner.
"This epidemic is taking our youth. It's taking and destroying families of young people. These are the people that, if we get them into rehab, we get them into living a healthy lifestyle, we can save years and years of productive lives."
Dr. Jorgensen says the number of deaths from opioids would be significantly higher if police and other officials weren't equipped with the opioid antidote Naloxone.