Feb 5, 2018 3 min read

By most standards, a county coroner’s job isn’t controversial.

The coroner or assistants are on call 24/7 to respond to public or suspicious deaths. They identify the deceased at the scene or at the hospital, and determine a cause and manner of death. Sometimes, but not always, an autopsy is needed to further investigate how and why someone died.

This important work is mostly the same in every county – big and small – across America.

But something has changed over the past decade as the opioid epidemic grips the country, especially our region. The investigative work done by a coroner after someone accidentally overdoses on drugs can explain the larger issues associated with the problem.

Just last week, Washington County District Attorney Gene Vittone and Coroner Timothy Warco alerted the public a deadly synthetic opioid is circulating around the area.

Toxicology tests performed on two victims showed the especially lethal carfentanil, which is used in elephant tranquilizers, was found in their blood. A third victim also is suspected of overdosing on carfentanil.

Vittone and Warco were proactive in alerting the public in hopes of warning families and friends of drug users this deadly batch is out there. Warco regularly provides detailed statistical reports online, and Vittone has been open about the drug problems facing his county.

That can’t be said in Greene County. At least, not until recently.

Longtime coroner Gregory Rohanna stonewalled repeated requests by reporters at this newspaper to review his annual reports that could be helpful in examining the opioid epidemic. The Observer-Reporter filed a lawsuit in July requesting access to the reports from 2015 and 2016, when the number of drug deaths spiked, putting Greene County on par with the highest drug death rates in the country per 100,000 residents. That case is still being litigated.

During that time, however, Rohanna faced the first electoral challenge for his seat in the two decades he held office. Gene Rush campaigned on a promise of transparency and a willingness to work with public agencies to find a solution to the drug problem. Rush won by just four votes and took office in January.

It didn’t take long for him to make changes to the coroner’s office.

Last week, after filing his 2017 annual report at the county prothonotary’s office as required by state law, Rush spent time with a reporter going over the findings that showed a dozen people died of accidental overdoses last year, which represented a sharp drop from previous years. Not only did he open his report to the public, he promised to further analyze the data to offer statistics about the ages, locations and dates of death that will provide a snapshot of the drug epidemic.

He’s also going one step further.

Rush announced he will be working closely with the recently expanded Greene County Opioid Task Force that is bringing in government agencies, local organizations and community leaders.

“I’m going to be as open as I can,” Rush said last week. “Not just that it’s a drug death, but what kind of drugs. As we know, heroin and fentanyl go hand in hand. There’s no reason to hide that stuff. The public has a right to know.”

We couldn’t agree more. And it’s an incredibly important step to solving our region’s drug problem.

Rush’s transparency is a refreshing change in the Greene County coroner’s office. Hopefully it will save lives.