Johnson County Coroner Mike Pruitt talks on the phone while working in January 2021 at the coroner’s office located in the Johnson County Courthouse North Annex.
DAILY JOURNAL FILE PHOTO
The county’s death statistics paint a picture of what conditions affect county residents most and the growing need for a full-time coroner’s office.
Fewer people died last year compared to the previous two years, but as the county’s population continues to grow, the numbers will likely go up, officials say. About 1,020 people died last year in the county, a nearly 20.5% decrease from 2020, when 1,283 deaths were reported. The number of deaths reported in 2020 were the highest reported over a three-year period from 2019 to 2021. About 1,082 deaths were reported in 2019, according to the Johnson County Health Department.
Leading causes of death
The leading primary cause of death last year was coronary artery disease/heart disease, which killed 260 Johnson County residents.
The second leading primary cause of death includes various cancers, carcinoma and neoplasms, which killed 250 residents, with lung cancer being the highest-listed cause at 69 deaths, health department data shows.
Alzheimer’s, dementia and senility deaths grew last year, with 172 deaths reported, an almost 7% increase from 2020’s 160 reported deaths. Also last year, 92 deaths were listed as being the result of COPD, respiratory or pulmonary embolisms, data shows.
Amid the coronavirus pandemic, COVID-19 was reported as the primary cause of death for 87 people in 2021, and 152 people in 2020. Other people who died last year could have had COVID-19 listed as one of their causes of death as well, but it was not the primary cause of their death. Because of this, they may not have been listed on the health department’s annual report under COVID-19 deaths, said Betsy Swearingen, county health department director.
Across the United States, COVID-19 ranked third behind heart disease and cancer in 2020 and 2021. COVID-19 was either a primary cause or one of multiple contributing causes of 467,000 deaths in 2021. This was an increase of nearly 100,000 deaths compared to 2020, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Drugs and the opioids epidemic remain an issue locally. In the last three years, 103 drug intoxication deaths were reported due to various types of drugs, including fentanyl, methamphetamine and others, according to the county health department.
The highest number of drug intoxication deaths were reported last year, when it killed 45 people. Forty deaths were reported in 2020 and 18 were reported in 2019, data shows.
Investigations about average
Of the more than 1,000 deaths last year, the Johnson County Coroner’s Office investigated about a third of them.
The number of deaths investigated may seem high, but it is about average for the office. The coroner’s office investigates any deaths with unknown causes, and often conducts joint investigations with local law enforcement, said Mike Pruitt, county coroner.
While a majority of the county’s deaths fall under natural causes, there were about 300 deaths that required some sort of investigation. The office typically investigates drug overdoses, homicides, fatal accidents and any other type of unknown deaths, Pruitt said.
The coroner’s office saw more drug overdoses and suicides reported compared to previous year, but that was expected due to the county’s population growth. Johnson County’s population increased by 15.8% between 2010 and 2020, and now stands at 161,765, according to census data.
The number of deaths is already up this year, too, compared to the same time last year, Pruitt said.
“We know those numbers are going to grow as the county grows,” he said.
Coroner’s office needs
The coroner’s office is able to keep up with the workload with the staff it has now.
Down the road, though, the office has several needs that will need to be addressed, said Pruitt, who was elected to the position in 2020.
For instance, the coroner’s office is currently split between three locations around the county. The actual office is located at the Johnson County Courthouse Annex North in downtown Franklin, while the morgue is located across town at Johnson Memorial Hospital. Autopsies are conducted at Jessen and Keller Funeral Home in Whiteland, he said.
“We are spread out across three locations, so we have a need to centralize the office and the morgue,” Pruitt said. “One of things I have envisioned since taking office is to find a way to do that and make it more efficient.”
County officials are aware of the need, and the coroner’s office is discussing what could possibly be done. A move that big does not happen overnight, he said.
In addition to a centralized location, the coroner’s office may need to have full-time staff sooner or later. The office has eight employees and no one — including Pruitt — is full-time. Every day, the office receives phone calls or requests for information from a variety of sources, including families and legal firms.
“We got a lot of administrative-type requests that we handle from our phones, from the road, and that is a challenge because we are part-time (employees) and have full-time jobs (as well),” Pruitt said.
There is a need for someone to be responsive to those requests. A lot of the calls the office gets are from people all over the county who are looking for someone, and that’s something the office spends a lot of time on, he said.
Many families have questions about their deceased loved ones, and the office has a responsibility to get them answers when they can. Pruitt and his team often spend hours on the phone trying to get answers to their questions to help them through those tough times, he said.
“We spend a lot of time working with families,” Pruitt said. “We take that very seriously … especially in a tragedy.”
Everyone at the office knew being part-time would be a challenge when they accepted their positions. They also knew that changes would need to be made to how the office works, and that was also going to be a challenge, he said.
“As demands get higher, (the office is) going to need to transition to full-time personnel down the road,” Pruitt said. “We don’t know when, but it will definitely transition from part-time to full-time.”
