2023 Coroner’s Report: Where we’ve improved

(COLORADO SPRINGS) — The El Paso County Coroner’s Office released its 2023 report, which marked another record-breaking year, but with some successes.

Each year, the Coroner’s Report provides critical data about the most tragic outcomes in our community, but this year it also notes some areas of improvement, like the number of homicides and deadly crashes, both of which decreased.

“Most years I don’t have a lot of good news, but this is one of the few times that I do,” said Dr. Leon Kelly, El Paso County Coroner.

The 2023 report shows some big improvements in the 19 Southern Colorado counties it serves.

“That’s because we’ve seen dramatic decreases in our homicides, we’ve seen decreases in our motor vehicle crashes, we’ve seen decreases in our overall drug deaths as well as our suicides,” added Dr. Kelly.

In 2023, there were 6,036 death investigations, a 10% decrease from 2022, along with 1,563 autopsies preformed, which is a 7% increase.

“We’ve seen positive movement, because we’ve seen successes over the last several years in some of these big things, that it’s… encouraging that we’re doing the right thing to address these areas,” added Dr. Kelly.

Total drug related deaths decreased by 2%, with Fentanyl deaths increasing by 6%, which the coroner said shows a flattening of the rate of rise in Fentanyl deaths seen over the past six years.

“While yeah, it can be alarming that it seems to be a topic of discussion amongst all of us, and it really means that we’re in a place where we need to get to help,” he added.

A so-called “remarkable” decrease came in the report of 50 homicides–a 36% decrease from 2022–because nearly every injury category including firearms went down.

Youth suicides increased from four in 2022 to 10 in 2023, while overall suicides fell by 2%.

“That’s also good because these are this is a generation of people who feel comfortable reaching out for help when they need it,” said Dr. Kelly.

Finally, deadly crashes dropped by 19%, but there was an increase in chronic alcohol-related deaths, which has been trending up in recent years.

To see the full report click here .

“The culture changed about drinking and driving and drug use. All of that resulted in lives saved, and then we saw, a three-year kind of reversal of those positive trends,” said Dr. Kelly.

Dr. Kelly said many of these improvements are community and individual efforts of making good decisions and he encourages the community to continue the positive trend for 2024.

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