Deaths report reveals how people in Fresno County died in 2021

Isaiah Varela
·2 min read

FRESNO COUNTY, Calif. (KSEE/KGPE) – Within the 6,011 square miles that encompass all of Fresno County, the coroner’s office is tasked with unveiling the cause of suspicious or unexpected deaths that occur.

In their most recent report, the Fresno County Coroner stated in 2021, 10,925 deaths in total occurred with only 1,390 of them accepted as cases for the coroner to investigate. Of the cases, six causes of death have not been determined yet.

The number of total deaths has also risen since 2020 by 1,791 and by 3,456 since 2019.

The accidental ways people in Fresno County died over the past 2 years

Out of the total coroner cases, statistics report about 43% of them were deemed accidental deaths. Of these accidents, more were overdose-related. In total, 232 were accidental overdoses with males making up 75% of those deaths.

Methamphetamine was present in a majority of these overdoses with fentanyl following behind.

The coroner states out of the 171 deaths caused by a single drug overdose, 105 of them were from meth and 43 were from fentanyl. Meth and fentanyl were found to be present in 45% of combined drug overdose

Overall, the number of accidental overdoses dropped by about 9% since 2020, but is still up by about 30% since 2019.

According to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), in 2021 25.6% of people aged 18 to 25 had a substance use disorder. The same survey also stated people 18 to 25 made up 33.7% of those with any mental illness as well as 11.4% of those with a serious mental illness. Almost 9% or 12.3 million adults 18 or older had serious thoughts of suicide.

The coroner’s data reveals suicides have shown a decline since 2017 with it set at 118 then down to 94 in 2021. About 83% of those victims were male and half of all 2021 suicides were in the age range of 21 to 40 years old. Most of the acts occurred almost every three months with the exception of July to November.

Homicide death trends in the survey also revealed a spike from 2018 at 65 to 2020 at 120 with only an eight-person difference to 2021. 99 of the 112 homicides in 2021 were the result of a gunshot and about 84% of the total victims were male.

The Fresno County Coroner’s Office has yet to release the statistics for 2022 and 2023.

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