 - Fremont County Coroner Erin Ivie reported a significant increase in non-natural deaths during the first half of 2026 this week, including rises in suicides and accidental deaths - and traffic fatalities in particular.){kind=link}
(Lander, WY) – Fremont County Coroner Erin Ivie reported a significant increase in non-natural deaths during the first half of 2026 this week, including rises in suicides and accidental deaths – and traffic fatalities in particular.
Fifty-two percent of all coroner cases so far this year have involved non-natural deaths – meaning deaths from accident, homicide, suicide, or undetermined causes, Ivie told the Fremont County Commission during a regular meeting Tuesday.
That’s a “huge” increase from last year, when Ivie said only 35 percent of coroner cases involved non-natural deaths.
Vehicular deaths triple
Most of the increase in non-natural deaths has been due to the number of accidental deaths and suicides recorded in Fremont County so far this year: According to Ivie’s report, there have been 29 accidental deaths so far in in 2026 – nine more than during the first half of 2025 – and there have been seven suicides – up from zero during the same timeframe in 2025.
In addition, Ivie said there have been three times as many vehicular deaths in Fremont County so far this year compared to 2025.
“There have been 15 vehicular deaths so far in 2026,” she said. “That’s 10 more, or three times as much, as the first half of 2025, where we only had five at this time.”
Nine of the vehicular deaths were drug- or alcohol-related, Ivie noted, and of the 11 instances where seatbelts were available, they were in use four times.
Overall, 38 percent of this year’s coroner cases have involved drugs or alcohol, Ivie continued, including 52 percent of non-natural deaths (all three homicides, two of the seven suicides, and 16 of the 29 accidental deaths).
Alcohol remains the leading contributing substance in local deaths in Fremont County, at 20 so far this year, Ivie said, followed by methamphetamine at seven, cannabis at five, and illicit prescription opioids at two (one non-fentanyl and one fentanyl).
In total, Ivie said there have been 168 recorded deaths so far in Fremont County this year.
Her office was contacted for 97 of those deaths, she said, and 77 (or 46 percent of the total) became coroner cases – three more than 2025.
Each one of those numbers represents “a loved on in our community,” she reminded the commission this week.
“They’re not just statistics,” Ivie said. “They’re actually family members. … If we can keep that in mind, I think that’d be important.”