Posted on 01/19/2018 4:56:40 PM PST by Wolfie
Tom Petty's Autopsy: Singer Died From Massive Accidental Drug Overdose
Tom Petty's autopsy results are in, and they show the singer died from an accidental drug overdose as a result of taking a variety of medications.
The L.A. County Coroner says a number of Tom's organs failed due to "mixed drug toxicity."
Tom's autopsy report shows the singer was on several pain meds, including Fentanyl patches, oxycodone (Oxycontin), temazepam (Restoril), alprazolam (Xanax), citalopram (Celexa), acetyl fentanyl and despropionyl fentanyl. The reason doctors prescribed the meds was because of a number of medical problems, including emphysema, knee problems and a fractured hip.
The family says the linchpin to Tom's demise was the fractured hip. He insisted on touring for 53 concert dates with the condition, which worsened over time and caused him to take the meds. On the date he had the heart attack he was told his hip had graduated to a full-on break that made the pain unbearable and may have caused the overuse of meds.
The autopsy says Petty suffered from coronary artery atherosclerosis.
As we reported ... Tom's official death certificate left his cause of death as "deferred," leaving it as a mystery until now.
We broke the story ... Tom went into full cardiac arrest before being taken to a hospital in L.A. He eventually died when his family took him off life support.
Fentanyl was also linked to the deaths of Prince and Lil Peep.
Tom was 66.
The dose makes the poison. Some people might rotate between the meds. It isn’t always scarfing down whole bottles in spite of the caricature.
Tom was pushing his body too hard on top of the drugs. That would lead to weakness that would make it easier to succumb to the drugs.
I guess it’s assumed it wasn’t a suicide move, sans an obvious motive or note.
Very sad.
“With enough money you can get anything.”
I guess.
You are wrong on that one.
Petty was not a ‘trooper’, he was a ‘trouper’. Sheesh...learn the language. Harrumph!!
The dead overdosers are not laughing.
Citalopram and Xanax are not for pain, and didn’t kill him.
The drug cocktail he took killed him.
Sorry to hear that Petty relapsed - this time with fatal consequences. His music was a huge part of my teen years and I still love it.
Me too. As a understand it, this is a common problem for people who live their lives on stage.
Wait, maybe I need to expand that to all people. Aren’t we all, at some point, driven to keep going on, despite the difficulties we have? Some of us are productive and like to be productive. We get a sense of self-worth from being active. We keep marching on.
However, you have a point. God wants us to take rest from time to time. Rest can be very rejuvenating. We reconnect with Him! Ultimately, we desire to take our rest in God. He knows us, and He knows what we need. It is important that we take time to rest.
“We’ve all got wheels to take ourselves away
we’ve got telephones to say what we can’t say
we all got higher and higher every day
come on wheels, take this boy away”
- Gram Parsons
Petty had announced The Heartbreakers weren’t going to do anymore tours. He had three or four more shows scheduled after he took a break, but he had called it quits from touring. If they don’t have those wheels (and airplanes) to take them away from the grind of everyday life a lot of musicians just fade away.
Perhaps performing was the drug. Being on stage, being the center of attention on screen, in the press, as a politician, actor, sports figure, mega church pastor, international businessman, etc.
All of these things at all levels, local, state, national, international can be highly intoxicating. If seen as a means to an end, they can become addicting to the point where humans will go to any extreme to stay in the limelight. We see falls from grace in any and all walks of life. As The Apostle Paul stated, “ there but for the grace of God go I”.
Rest In Peace Tom Petty
Opioids are not the crisis, a loss of conscience fed by a people who no longer live with a holy fear of the Lord is. Without a moral compass, physicians will treat with disregard for harm for $$. People will push beyond normal boundaries and limitations for they choose only to live for the present with utter disregard for the future. Moral uprightness demands one to be moderate in all things concerning living. Not living to dangerous or careless extremes.
So back to the premise, is the crisis opioids, or is the choice to live without boundaries the crisis that fuels the search for the elixir of life? That one might feel or believe immortality is just a cocktail away the crisis? All these choices must come to a people to whom ‘God is Dead’ for there is no hope for any other way to live. But Christ came that we might have life and have it more abundantly, what will you do with so great a salvation?
Prayers for the Petty family and the Petty musical family. Amen.
Coming up on 24 years for Joe.
Very sad.
One can see how the addiction comes from the pain and the patient thinks he can handle any combo of pain meds because maybe he has in the past. It doesn’t take much to shut down the most primitive part of the brain, which operates breathing and heartbeat. Maybe the exact combo a week before was handled by the system, but in the last few days, you’d taken less. Your tolerance thus went down a bit. And a bad pain night, including forgetting what you took 2 hours ago, gave you just enough to shut down the animalian brain. There goes that heart.
I’m sorry for your loss. I just loved loved loved his music. From the moment I heard Breakdown on the street the first time.
Yes, Howie’s story was very sad.
That was filmed in Gainesville for his triumphant return concert.
There are two institutions in Gainesville: UF and Tom Petty.
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