Greenville County saw a decrease in accidental overdose deaths in 2023. Here's why.

The Greenville County Coroner's Office reported a decrease in accidental overdose deaths in 2023, the first decline in five years, according to data from the agency.

According to Chief Deputy Coroner Mike Ellis, the office reported 219 accidental overdose fatalities in 2023, down from 274 accidental overdose deaths in 2022.

In prior years, the office reported 258 accidental overdoses in 2021, 173 in 2020, and 130 in 2019. The 2023 data represents the first decline the office has documented in the last five years.

The coroner’s office couldn't identify one singular cause for the decrease in accidental overdose deaths but pointed to efforts to share education about substance use and new systems to help bring awareness of harmful drugs in the area as possible reasons.

"What the actual answer is to the decrease of that number, I think it's comprised of multiple things," Greenville County Deputy Coroner Shelton England said. "I can't narrow it down to one answer as to the reason in the decrease. I think that all entities throughout Greenville are doing great things but clearly, something is working."

Educational partnerships help bring awareness of substance abuse disorders

In 2020, the coroner's office and the Phoenix Center, a substance use treatment center in Greenville, partnered to create the Mobile Substance Abuse and Education unit. This unit, which operates out of the coroner’s office, is tasked with going to communities and schools, and providing programs to teach different age groups about substance misuse. The Phoenix Center also offers drug screenings, educational programming and out-patient services, among others to combat substance abuse disorders.

"When we started it, we thought about going out and meeting people where they are and educating on substance use," England said.

The education unit offers video lessons and exercises that show the effects of different drugs and how they can have life threatening consequences.

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The Phoenix Center’s Director of Community Engagement Mike McLain said the partnership formed when the two organizations noticed the trend of overdose deaths continued to tick upwards in recent years.

"We just wanted to try to make a difference on the front end of this issue instead of the back end when it’s too late," McLain said. "The coroner's office has been very responsive and very forward thinking to help intervene in this crisis. Hopefully this partnership will reduce those calls that their coroners have to go on and investigate with it ending up as an unintentional overdose."

McLain said that the education the organizations both provide about substance abuse disorders plays a vital role in the effort to decrease the number of overdoses.

"Education is vital for our community to see that this is a public health issue. There are families that have never dealt with addiction who are now losing loved ones due to addiction and overdoses. We want to get the message out," McLain said.

England mentioned that the use and distribution of Narcan has also helped decrease the number of overdoses. Narcan, the brand name for Naloxone, is a medication used to reverse an overdose by blocking the effects of opioids. He said that having this medication even more readily available to the public than it has been in the past is vital. Currently, the Phoenix Center offers Narcan distribution and every first responder in Greenville County is equipped with it, England said.

"Open access allows for even more hope of reversing and decreasing overdoses. There's no harm in administering Narcan even if it's not an overdose, so if there is a fear of a possible overdose, you can only end up with positive results," England said.

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How faster toxicology results help raise awareness of harmful drugs in the county

In addition to the partnership with the Phoenix Center, the coroner’s office is adding new substance identification systems that they anticipate will bring more awareness to the public about drugs that are in the area.

The office received a $102,000 grant from the Upstate Healthcare Coalition for the implementation of the Randox Rapid Toxicology system. The Randox system is a new toxicology system that helps identify what type of drugs were in someone’s body after they die.

"It's more real-time data versus currently, you have to wait 12 weeks out before you can hear back the results. With this, we’re getting results within a day or two," England said.

The coroner’s office uses an outside laboratory, the National Medical Laboratory System, to produce toxicology reports.

The National Medical Laboratory System provides a percentage of substances inside a deceased body.  In comparison, the Randox system only tests whether a certain substance is in a person’s body with a positive or negative result which produces a faster report, according to the coroner’s office.

The rapid toxicology system allows the coroner’s office to provide more information on overdoses and spread awareness more quickly, England said.

The coroner’s office is also utilizing the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area’s Overdose Map program, a system used by different law enforcement, coroner’s offices and hospitals around the country to track overdoses and drug trafficking trends in an area.

"The more we know about what drugs are around us and how they're affecting people, the more we can educate the public," Ellis said.

According to the coroner’s office, this program helps identify trends before they could become a major issue.

"If we're seeing an influx of overdoses in this area, we really need to target that area to go out and do education. It's all on identified data and it creates a heat map to target where we may need to do Narcan distribution there," England said.

Terry Benjamin II covers public safety and breaking news for The Greenville News and can be reached at tbenjamin@gan.nett.com or on X @Terrybenji2.

This article originally appeared on Greenville News: Greenville coroner sees first decrease in overdose deaths in 5 years