Accidental Drug and Swimming Pool Deaths Rise Markedly in County

Accidental deaths by drug overdose and drowning in swimming pools showed “dramatic” increases in Orange County last year, with 344 people dying by accidental means in 1986, up from 308 the previous year, according to a report issued Thursday by Sheriff-Coroner Brad Gates.

There were 750 more deaths in the county from all causes in 1986 than in 1985, the report said.

But not all the news was bad in the coroner’s annual statistics on deaths in Orange County. The number of homicides dropped 15% and traffic accidents fell by 8%. The number of suicides fell 2%, and four fewer people died on Orange County’s freeways in 1986 than in 1985.

“There weren’t a lot of things that totally jumped out (from the report),” said Lt. Richard J. Olson, spokesman for the Orange County Sheriff-Coroner Department. “There just wasn’t anything that appeared out of control. . . . But there were some areas where, although the numbers were not large, to us they were a dramatic increase, such as accidental deaths by drowning, especially by swimming pool drownings.”

In 1985, 33 people died by accidental drowning--13 in swimming pools, six in bath tubs and 4 in hot tubs. One year later, accidental drownings rose to 48, with 25 people dying in swimming pools alone--an increase of more than 90%.

“Last September, the sheriff made a point of putting out a release on the alarming rise of swimming-pool drownings, mostly by children,” Olson said Thursday. “It (the increase) just indicates that there’s something wrong somewhere.”

A total of 13,800 people died in Orange County in 1986, up 6% from 13,050 in 1985. Olson did not know if the increase was unusual, he said, because current population statistics are not available for comparison.

Two of the largest cities in the county reported the most deaths by what the coroner’s office terms “traumatic” means. In Santa Ana, there were 158 such deaths in 1986--60 by accidents, 33 by suicide, 31 by traffic collisions and 34 homicides.

Anaheim was second with 113--37 deaths by accidents, 30 by suicide, 36 by traffic collision, and 10 homicides. By contrast, two of the smallest communities--Villa Park and Sunset Beach--reported no such violent deaths in 1986.

2 Unborn Children Die

The number of accidental deaths by ingestion or injection of drugs rose nearly 20%, from 106 in 1985 to 126 in 1986. Two unborn children were killed because their mothers injected heroin during pregnancy.

Olson said this increase in accidental death by drugs was “probably not as great an increase as some people would have thought, because some of these anti-drug programs took hold” during the frenzied 1986 war on drugs.

“Still, the overall number (of drug deaths) is too high for society,” he said.

The report shows a variety of types of accidental deaths: Five people died in private aircraft crashes, three from accidental gunshot wounds and 66 from falls of one sort or another.

But the statistics contain examples of deaths occurring under strange circumstances: One person died after being bitten on the hand by a dog. Another’s parachute failed to open while skydiving and a third drove an electric cart into an elevator shaft.