What you're most likely to accidentally die of in Lexington County

The Lexington County Coroner's Office released its annual report detailing the numbers and ways in which people perish in the county west of the Congaree. In the report some striking details about overdose deaths stand out.

Coroner Margaret Fisher and her deputies accounted for 2,134 deaths in Lexington in 2017. The vast majority of those were natural deaths. The specific causes aligned with national statistics. Heart disease, cancer and chronic respiratory diseases led the way in Lexington as they do with the overall population of the United States. However, Alzheimer’s related deaths ranked as the third leading cause of death in Lexington. Across the nation Alzheimer's ranks sixth.

What stood out were the ways in which people accidentally died in Lexington. One cause of accidental deaths overtook the others.

In 2015 and 2016 vehicle collisions were the leading cause of accidental deaths, most of those happening on two lane roads between two or more vehicles. In 2015 at least one person died from riding on the hood of a vehicle. No hood riding deaths are accounted for in the 2017 stats.

The most striking change in 2017 over previous years is the number of overdose deaths. For the first time since Fisher began her annual report, death by OD surpassed vehicle collisions with 50 individuals dying of overdoses and 47 dying from wrecks. More people died of ODs than falls, fires, drowning, suffocation, and boat collisions combined.

Opiates and opioids were the main cause of people dying from an OD. Morphine and Fentanyl caused the most deaths.

Fentanyl has been heavily reported on for its potency, often said to be 100 times more powerful than heroin and often laced into the injected drug causing regular users to OD.

Heroin was cited as the cause of only two deaths though that might be misleading the report says as a number of opiate or opioid drugs could be found in a persons system as well as the fact that heroin might show up as morphine in a toxicology report since the two are derived from similar sources.

Depressants like Benzodiazipines, often used to treat anxiety, were the second leading cause of overdose deaths. Benzodiazipine, known as benzo or or BZN, is sometime used for recreational purposes and when combined with another depressant like alcohol can increase the chances of death.

Marijuana did not make the list.

More striking though is who's dying of overdose deaths in Lexington County. Nationally, white males are more likely to overdose than white females. Black and hispanic populations are far less inclined to die of drug use. Last year in Lexington the male to female ratio of deadly ODs was flipped on its head with 30 white females dying of overdoses compared to 18 white males. That's also a shift from 2016 when males died more often of ODs than females.

Falls were the third leading cause of accidental death in Lexington County. Also, deaths resulting from boating collisions in Lexington are five times higher than the national percentage.

See the full 2017 Lexington County Coroner's report here.

This story was originally published May 26, 2018 at 2:06 PM with the headline "What you're most likely to accidentally die of in Lexington County."