We've broken a record in Erie county, and it's not a positive one.
We've surpassed the amount of drug overdose deaths in the county, ever.

So 2017 is now the deadliest year on Erie county record for drug overdoses.
That's alarming, but Erie County Coroner Lyell Cook says it's not necessarily surprising, "August 21st, we have reached 95 drug deaths for the year in Erie county, which was the yearly total for 2016, which incidentally also was the highest in Erie county history," said Cook. "We kind of suspected that this was going to happen," Cook added.

And that number is expected to grow. Once eight more suspected drug deaths are confirmed, Cook says we'll surpass one hundred deadly overdoses by the end of August.

In fact, just in the past four days, there have been four suspected drug deaths, "It's a variety of ages, genders, races, educational backgrounds. The trend is frightening, and it's not just Erie, it's everywhere," said Cook.

And while Cook suspected this deadly trend would continue to rise, one changing trend may be surprising.
Erie county has seen virtually no drug deaths from Heroin this entire summer, "It's just going to keep going, and going, and going, although surprisingly we've seen virtually no heroin this summer, at all," said Cook. "Fentanyl is still the big killer, although now it's being mixed with cocaine instead of heroin," Cook continued.

Coroner Cook says a new designer drug called U47770 has hit the streets of Erie, claiming six lives.  It's another powerful form of Fentanyl.

And while the street drugs become deadlier, Cook says this nationwide trend will likely continue.