CHICAGO, Illinois— Coroners across the United States are lamenting the lack of space in morgues as there has been a major spike of synthetic opioid deaths due to fentanyl in the country.

A report by the New York Post said that there were 6000 synthetic opioid deaths in 2015, a number which has multiplied drastically to 63,000 deaths in 2021. The cause, after checks done, is fentanyl.

“The most common non-natural death is opioids, it’s more than our number of homicides, more than our number of traffic accidents,” said Cook County Chief Medical Examiner, Dr Ponni Arunkumar.

It was revealed that opioid-related deaths in Cook County in Chicago have nearly tripled from 675 in 2015, to nearly 2,000 last year.

“Most of them were related to fentanyl… These opioid deaths are preventable, all these deaths are preventable,” said Dr Arunkumar.

Chicago-area resident, Karen Zander, lost her 22-year-old son, John Allen, to fentanyl poisoning. Zander said in 2016, Allen made the choice to snort cocaine that his best friend spiked with fentanyl, which ultimately killed him.

“These choices that they’re making, they’re not able to learn from their mistakes because they’re dying,” said Zander.

Zander says fentanyl is a weapon of mass destruction.

“It’s time for us to wake up and to get this stuff off the street,” said Zander.

Another Chicago-area resident, Caitlin Strebing, says her 35-year-old brother Ryan accidentally overdosed on fentanyl last year. She now advocates for substance abuse disorders and fentanyl awareness.

“Fentanyl is the leading cause of death in the US right now for ages 18-45 and I think that alone speaks for itself,” said Strebing.

So far, there’s no sign of this deadly trend stopping. The Cook County Medical Examiner’s office still utilizes their refrigerated trailers for morgue space and can handle all the bodies for now.

“The increase in 2020 has continued into 2021 and 2022 but if it increases further, then we may have to look at additional resources,” said Dr Arunkumar.

Some coroners’ offices have had to increase their budgets to address the problem.