A comment at the most recent King County Board of Health Meeting has sparked a lot of controversy and discussion around the drug epidemic impacting western Washington. "The medical examiner's office is now struggling with the issue of storing bodies because the fentanyl related death toll continues to climb," said King County Public Health Director Dr. Faisal Khan. He said it was an indicator of how bad things got at the end of 2022 and how they will be in 2023. Dr. Khan said the Medical Examiner's (ME) office has finite space in the coolers they use and the space is being exceeded on a regular basis. He noted this is an issue across the country in many major metro areas. KING 5 reached out to King County Public Health to talk about this issue. They sent us a statement, which said fatal overdoses aren't the only reason why they're running out of space. The statement read, in part: “We have options for temporary morgue surge capacity when our census count gets high, including storing decedents on autopsy gurneys and partnerships with funeral homes. We’re exploring longer-term options for adding more capacity." Nicole Daugherty, the operations manager at the Snohomish County Medical Examiner's Office, provided some insight on other reasons why morgue capacity has become an issue for many counties in western Washington. Daugherty says staffing has been issue. READ THE FULL STORY: https://www.king5.com/article/news/local/fatal-overdoses-staffing-morgue-capacity-issues/281-d31b1957-2707-4ba1-825a-22a98b772728