"I'm shocked! Just shocked!"
Posted on 02/06/2008 8:08:05 AM PST by Perdogg
Heath Ledger's death on Jan. 22 was due to an accidental mixture of prescription drugs, the Office of Chief Medical Examiner for the City of New York has concluded.
"Mr. Heath Ledger died as the result of acute intoxication by the combined effects of oxycodone, hydrocodone, diazepam, temazepam, alprazolam, and doxylamine," said an announcement released Wednesday morning by office spokesperson Ellen Borakove.
Oxycodone is a pain medication, hydrocodone is a cough suppressant, diazepam is commonly called Valium, temazepam treats anxiety or sleeplessness, alprazolam is known as Xanax, and doxylamine is a sedating antihistamine.
(Excerpt) Read more at people.com ...
Who?
"I'm shocked! Just shocked!"
Wow, that's some potent stuff he was on. I imagine Heath was doing a bit of doctor shopping (or got them illegally) to get all those. Tragic what stardom does to many people.
by the combined effects of:
oxycodone
hydrocodone
diazepam
temazepam
alprazolam
and
doxylamine
And that was just for BREAKFAST!
Yikes. That is a lot of meds he was taking. All of these could NOT have been perscribed by the same doctor, knowing the lethal combination.
How tragic for his baby girl. :^(
Ring my friend I said you’d call Doctor Robert,
Day or night he’ll be there anytime at all,
Doctor Robert,
Doctor Robert, you’re a new and better man,
He helps you to understand,
He does ev’rything he can, Doctor Robert.
If you are down he’ll pick you up, Doctor Robert,
Take a drink from his special cup, Doctor Robert,
Doctor Robert, he’s a man you must believe,
Helping ev’ry one in need,
No-one can succeed like Doctor Robert...
The Beatles - Dr. Robert
If he had prescriptions for all of these and was not simply purchasing them on the street or getting them from a friend, then presumably a prescribing MD told him about interactions to be concerned about. It may have gone in one ear and out the other. It astonishes me to see the things that people who are competent actors and actresses can do on the screen (to the non-thespian, it seems difficult, would require some uncommon kind of intelligence) and then the incredibly stupid things they do (instant case) or say (e.g., Sean Penn). Anyhow, I think this one deserves an asterisk for stretching the bounds of the definition of “accidental” death.
Dont be so quick to assume “doctor shopping” From personal experience, I know these damn doctors treat the symptom and not the disease.
I admire Heath's body of work very much and he sounds like a cool down to earth guy, however I think the other tragedy is the protecting of how he died and what sort of behavior and outlook/rational led up to it as if it is sacrilege.
He may have been a brilliant actor, but not much on the common sense side. Any person whose mother of his child threatens that he can not see his beloved child when he is using drugs, that continues to whine about it as he continues to use drugs is a drug addict. No two ways around it.
Heath Ledger was a drug addict and paid for it with his life as many drug addicts and alcoholics do. That is the lesson here. The lesson is that you can and may very well die young if you continue to use drugs improperly no matter what your station in life.
My prayers go out to his daughter, the mother of his child and his family. They are the victims here. They had no control over what he put in his body and had no choice in it proceeding his death. I wish he could have taken the help offered to him earlier seriously.
Well said. I don’t doubt that it was an accident, but it appears that the man accidentally swallowed a pharmacy. No common sense.
If one doctor had him on all those, there should be some serious questions to answer.
I’m guessing that Mr. Ledger did not obtain all of those drugs through a doctor, and that at least some of them came to him via friends.
Sounds like a combo for someone that fell down an elevator shaft, off a high rise, or fell out the door on the interstate.
Ummm, hydrocodone is better known as "Vicodin" and is for a lot more than just coughs, while Oxycodone is Oxycontin (and in Percocet). Pretty powerful mix.
-Eric
Prayers for the family. They are victims of drug addiction. There is no doctor to blame for this.
A couple were over-the-counter medications, not prescribed. Obviously he didn’t talk to a pharmacist about what he could take.
Did you hear the spin his family put on it?
“In a statement released through Ledger’s publicist, Ledger’s father, Kim, said Wednesday: “While no medications were taken in excess, we learned today the combination of doctor-prescribed drugs proved lethal for our boy. Heath’s accidental death serves as a caution to the hidden dangers of combining prescription medication, even at low dosage.”
That’s like saying someone committed suicide from a lethal combination of a little bit of stabbing, a little bit of buckshot, a little bit of strangulation and a little bit of beating oneself over the head with a brick.
It’s amazing just how far some people can stick their heads up their butts.
Well that would explain the phone call to the skinny one I suppose. “Hey, how do I get rid of this stuff before the cops get here?”
WOW, that’s one heck of a medicine cabinet for treating a cold.
I usually take a couple of advils and grind it out.
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