Coroner: Bucks inmate died of complications from opiate withdrawal

Posted March 18, 2018

The Bucks County Coroner has determined a 52-year-old man died of complications from opiate withdrawal, roughly one day after he was arrested and placed in county prison. His was the third opiate withdrawal-related death at the Doylestown prison since 2013.

Fred Adami

The Jan. 28 death has been ruled as natural causes. An autopsy found Frederick Adami, of Richboro, had an enlarged heart, a condition often seen in chronic drug abusers, according to Coroner Dr. Joseph Campbell. Toxicology results showed Adami tested positive for opiates and cocaine byproducts.

Bensalem police arrested Adami around 3 a.m. on Jan. 27 after an officer spotted him sleeping in his car parked outside a convenience store on Bristol Pike, according to Director of Public Safety Fred Harran. The officer discovered Adami had an open arrest warrant for failure to pay child support and a baggie of suspected heroin in his car.

Opiate withdrawal generally is not considered dangerous for otherwise physically healthy drug users, according to medical and substance abuse experts. But it can have life-threatening consequences for individuals with chronic medical conditions — such as heart disease — because it puts significant physical stress on organs and blood vessels, according to drug treatment professionals.

There are other risks associated with withdrawal side effects, including dehydration, electrolyte imbalance, neurological arrhythmia and cardiac arrhythmia, according to medical experts.

Vallia “Valene” Karaharisis, 29, of Philadelphia, died during heroin withdrawal, in September 2013, three days after she was arrested and incarcerated at Bucks County prison on a probation violation. Six months later, Marlene Yarnall, 49, of Bensalem died of a cardiac arrest triggered by heroin detoxification, three days after she was arrested on a probation violation. Records show Yarnall had a heart attack during heroin detoxification a year earlier when she was an inmate at the prison.

Relatives of both Karaharisis and Yarnall each filed wrongful death lawsuits in U.S. District Court against the countyand its prison which were settled out of court for $50,000 and $250,000 respectively, according to court records.