Escambia County has 63% of fentanyl deaths in 4-county area in 2021, deaths increased 48%

Benjamin Johnson, Pensacola News Journal
·2 min read

As the fentanyl problem in Escambia County continues, a recently published Florida Department of Law Enforcement report shows that fentanyl deaths spiked by 47.7% from 2020 to 2021 in District One Medical Examiner.

Escambia and Santa Rosa counties belong to the medical examiner's first district, which also includes Okaloosa County and portions of Walton County. That district saw 294 deaths caused by fentanyl and an additional 45 people in which fentanyl was present in the body but not the cause of death.

Earlier this year, Escambia County EMS Chief David Torsell stood before the Escambia School Board and discussed the problem of fentanyl and the possibility of it entering schools.

"If you're not familiar, we're being compared to Huntington, West Virginia," Torsell said. "Huntington, West Virginia, was the No. 1 place with drug overdoses for many, many years."

Coordinated Opioid Recovery:Amid rising overdoses, Escambia EMS launching 'wrap-around service' to reduce relapses

Fentanyl plague:Escambia County plagued by fentanyl: 'We're being compared to Huntington, West Virginia'

More severe and more chronic:23 Santa Rosa residents dead in 2022 so far from fentanyl overdoses. What can be done?

The fentanyl death count in 2021 was a nearly 48% increase from 2020's 199 deaths, according to FDLE's 2020 drug report. Of the 294 fentanyl-caused deaths in 2021, 277 of those deaths included a combination of other drugs.

Among the four counties included in the first medical examiner's district, Escambia County had the highest fentanyl death count than the other three, according to Medical Examiner Director of Operations Dan Schebler.

Escambia had 63% of the deaths in the district at 186 deaths. Okaloosa was second at 57 deaths, then Santa Rosa at 30 deaths and the portion of Walton County in the district had 21 deaths caused by fentanyl.

Here are the 2021 fentanyl deaths by age:

  • Younger than 18: 1

  • 18-25: 26

  • 26-34: 78

  • 35-50: 112

  • Older than 50: 77

"Fentanyl has become the bane of our existence," Torsell said in July, speaking on behalf of the county's EMS department. "Previously, you go back years, you’re talking about cocaine, marijuana, things like that. But now, everything we're seeing has fentanyl in it."

Here are the deaths caused by other drugs in 2021, according to FDLE's report:

  • Alprazolam: 36

  • Clonazepam: 2

  • Oxycodone: 23

  • Hydrocodone: 16

  • Methadone: 7

  • Morphine: 16

  • Fentanyl: 294

  • Cocaine: 84

  • Heroine: 45

  • Methamphetamine: 218

This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Fentanyl deaths increase 48% in 2021 in northwest florida