Medical Examiner Statistics Ebb, Flow

By DIANNE ALWARD-BIERY

Cleaver Staff Writer

HARRISON – Addressing the Nov. 6 meeting of the Clare County Board of Commissioners meeting of the Committee of the Whole was Lisa Kaspriak, representative of the Medical Examiner’s Office which serves Clare County and the region. She provided her office’s annual report, beginning by noting her office’s many part-time M.E. investigation staff, three who are nationally accredited and serve Clare County, while all the others are on their way to that accreditation.

“We’re very happy to have so many qualified people,” she said. “We continue to train them and help build them up toward the national association ideals and standards for death investigation. That’s good for your prosecutor and your law enforcement that we are operating every scene every time within those national standards.”

Kaspriak explained that anything that is unexpected – accident, suicide or homicide – crosses over into the medical examiner’s jurisdiction. She then broke down the report, beginning with Manner of Death by month and by year, noting some months are quieter than others, and that alignment is fairly consistent year over year. This year, overall numbers of deaths investigated for the county were down 9% to 10%, which she described as a lower variation of normal for Clare County.

She also noted that not all deaths occurring in the county fall under the medical examiner’s jurisdiction, and exclude such as those occurring while under the care of a physician or which are expected. That also includes natural hospice death, unless there is an unnatural event just prior to death.

Other statistics closely observed are manner of death by age, with the expectation that the older population would have a higher death rate.

“We just want to make sure the youth of this county don’t have a higher rate of fatalities and deaths that would cross our office,” Kaspriak explained. She pointed out that natural deaths for the county fall in line with national statistics, i.e., cardiac and cancer being two of the biggest categories to be expected for natural deaths. “No COVID,” she said. “We’re back to overdoses being our biggest watch right now.”

Another category, Accidental Deaths by Mechanism, helps to track what accidents are. Kaspriak noted accidents are up about 17% over last year, which falls within the mechanism. “If we were ever to experience one type or another that needed a public service announcement, we’d make sure that went out there,” she said. “If we saw something, we’d definitely report it to try to keep the community safe – that’s really what happened with COVID.

“Suicides are wonderfully down,” Kaspriak said, describing that as great news. “It’s probably the biggest win from this entire report that, overall suicides are down.”

Under Drugs and Cause of Death, there was a bit of cocaine, but the most deaths came from methamphetamine. She said extra staffing is employed to monitor just the drugs across the jurisdiction – something that better enables generation of the many reports required for various interest groups, such as the Opioid Task Force and the Opioid Spending Committee.

“If we don’t give good data as to what is actually in the system of somebody who passes, then they can’t move forward with where those funds should go,” she explained. “We’ve had people from as young as 4 years old to as old as 88 years old die with substances in their system that shouldn’t be there.”

Sometimes it’s accidental, such as too much of a prescribed medication and other times it’s within the normal limit of a prescription, but contains other drugs, yielding a mixed toxicity. “Numerous things can play into an overdose,” she said. “It’s not necessarily always just an overdose of one particular substance.”

Kaspriak reported her office had received two grants being used for a CT scanner to be put into a northern region where access to autopsies does not exist.

“We’re able then to diagnose up to 85% of what a normal invasive autopsy would do, with a CT scan,” she said. “By scanning a body, you can get so many different types of diagnoses, or the absence thereof. That, paired with toxicology, really gives us a great idea of what happened within that body – and a lot more closure for some families.”

It is hoped that additional grant money will be received to enable placing an additional CT scanner in the lower part of the state also.

Kaspriak further assured that her office has added two jurisdictions to the group, increased the number of staff available should an incident or mass fatality occur which would require more people. Thus, many capable people would be able to respond to Clare County residents.

She also referred to one particular item on the monthly report: Unclaimed Bodies, which in Clare County have reached an unprecedented number.

“We have had 14 unclaimed bodies over the past 12 months,” Kaspriak said. “That’s nothing we have ever seen in any of our counties. That’s a 250% increase over last year – we didn’t even see that during COVID. During COVID, we did see the highest increase at that time, but now we’ve blown that out of the water.”

Kaspriak did note that, if the person qualifies, her office is able to tap into a state fund which helps with that cost, avoiding direct costs to Clare County.

“However, it is an alarming rate,” she said. “They’re unclaimed/abandoned. Sometimes the family claims them, then walks away. There are various scenarios that fall into that category.”

Kaspriak encouraged the county to let her know of anything she should know, and noted her commitment to helping make it a better system, improving on what currently exists.

Wishing to end on a more positive note, she reminded that in Clare County, suicides and unexpected deaths are down, ergo autopsies are down, and the budget is doing well.