Coroner says Petty died from an overdose
Tom Petty died in October from an accidental drug overdose as a result of mixing medications that included opioids, a Los Angeles coroner says.
Tom Petty, the charttopping singer and songwriter, died in October from an accidental drug overdose as a result of mixing medications that included opioids, the medical examiner-coroner for the county of Los Angeles announced Friday, ending the mystery surrounding his sudden death.
The coroner, Jonathan Lucas, said Petty’s system showed traces of the drugs fentanyl, oxycodone, temazepam, alprazolam, citalopram, acetyl fentanyl and despropionyl fentanyl.
Barely a week after Petty, 66, had concluded a tour with his band, the Heartbreakers, with two shows at the Hollywood Bowl, representatives said the singer had suffered cardiac arrest at his home in Malibu, Calif., on Oct. 2.
But Petty’s official death certificate, released about a week later, listed his cause of death as “deferred” pending an autopsy.
In a statement posted to Petty’s Facebook page Friday, his wife, Dana, and daughter, Adria, wrote that Petty suffered from “many serious ailments including emphysema, knee problems and most significantly a fractured hip,” but he continued to tour, worsening his conditions.
“On the day he died he was informed his hip had graduated to a full-on break and it is our feeling that the pain was simply unbearable and was the cause for his over use of medication,” the statement from the family said. “We knew before the report was shared with us that he was prescribed various pain medications for a multitude of issues including Fentanyl patches and we feel confident that this was, as the coroner found, an unfortunate accident.
“As a family we recognize this report may spark a further discussion on the opioid crisis and we feel that it is a healthy and necessary discussion and we hope in some way this report can save lives.”
In 2016, the pop singer Prince was found to have died from an accidental overdose of self-administered fentanyl, a synthetic opiate estimated to be more than 50 times more powerful than heroin.