FRUITDALE — A 35-year-old man found dead in bed late last month had accidentally overdosed on fentanyl, Brown County Coroner Earl Piper reported last week.
Fentanyl is a powerful opioid that’s 50 to 100 times more powerful than morphine.
A deputy coroner, Brown County Sheriff’s Department Detective Paul Henderson and other officers investigated the death on Hornettown Road the morning of Jan. 24.
Piper ordered an autopsy to rule out other possible causes of death.
He believes the man died sometime between 10 p.m., when a family member saw him last, and 7 a.m., when the same family member found him.
He did not live at the home where he was found but had been staying there overnight with children, the sheriff’s department reported.
This was the first fatal overdose in Brown County in 2018.
In 2017, three people died of accidental overdoses in the county, the same number as in 2016. Two of the fatal overdoses in 2017 involved fentanyl, according to coroner records.
