The death of a 26-year-old Maine fisherman, found aboard a vessel moored at the Jodrey State Fish Pier in Gloucester, Massachusetts over the holiday weekend, is being categorized by the Essex District Attorney’s office as a suspected drug overdose.
Neither the state medical examiner’s office nor law enforcement authorities would confirm the identity of the man who was found aboard the FV/Titan at the fish pier off Parker Street early Saturday morning. A positive identification and definitive cause of death were, as of Wednesday, pending findings by state medical examiner’s office, said Carrie Kimball Monahan, spokeswoman for the office of Essex District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett.
Massachusetts state police from the DA’s office, following a call from Gloucester police, responded to a report of an unattended death. The troopers and Gloucester police found drug paraphernalia at the scene, indicating a likely overdose, Kimball Monahan said. There were no signs of foul play, and the DA’s office is not actively investigating, she said.
“If there is a presence of drug paraphernalia on or in the vicinity of the deceased, we will categorize that as a suspected drug overdose,” Kimball Monahan said. The DA’s office tracks overdose deaths each year for Essex County.
John McCarthy, Gloucester’s interim police chief, said Wednesday that police and the Fire Department’s rescue squad had responded to a call from an “unknown party” around 5:30 a.m. Saturday reporting an apparent drug overdose on the fishing boat Titan.
He said police and Fire Department paramedics found the 26-year-old man on the boat, and administered nasal naloxone, a drug that temporarily reverses the effects of an opioid overdose often known by its trade name, Narcan.
But the man remained unresponsive, and the paramedics indicated the man was dead at the scene.
The F/V Titan is owned by Love’s Fishery Inc., of North Yarmouth, Maine, with a homeport listed as Boston and a principal port of Gloucester. A woman answering the phone listed for Love’s Fishery on Wednesday said she could not comment.
Joan Whitney, director of the Healthy Gloucester Collaborative, said her agency’s overdose statistics, compiled through confirmations by the medical examiner’s office, show that five Gloucester residents have died this year from drug overdoses.
But those figures track opioid and other drug deaths by where the victim lives, not by where the death occurs, she noted. If a Gloucester resident dies after an overdose in Lynn, for example, that fatality would be logged as an overdose in Gloucester. Using that criteria, even if it is confirmed, Saturday’s suspected overdose fatality would not count as being in Gloucester.
“Any time this happens, it is a tragedy,” Whitney said. “A lot of people are doing a lot of great things (to combat opioid addiction), but this is something we’re still all facing. It’s still bigger than all of us.”
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