Heath Ledger, accidental overdose

February 6, 2008

NYC medical examiner: “The cause of death was acute intoxication by the combined effects of oxycodone, hydrocodone, diazepam, temazepam, alprazolam and doxylamine.”



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{ 3 comments }

1 ERMurse February 6, 2008 at 11:37 am

Makes you wonder if these meds were prescribed by one MD or many. If one, sounds like malpractice to me. Makes a good case for medication reconcilliation

2 jayparkinsonmd February 6, 2008 at 12:23 pm

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that this wasn’t an accidental overdose. It’s not that hard to secure plenty of controlled substances from multiple different doctors considering his status and how unorganized our state-by-state pharmaceutical dispensing system is. NY state has a reasonably good system but when you are Heath Ledger and have a doctor in CA, NY, New Zealand, and wherever else you want…it looks much less like malpractice vs. simply having the ability to get any drug you want.
Also, a close friend of mine was a close friend of his and knew the types of things he’d been saying the past few weeks about his life…it wasn’t accidental.

3 The Medicine Man February 6, 2008 at 1:26 pm

I wonder what criteria the medical examiner used to diagnose “accidental overdose” as opposed to suicide.

This may make a significant difference to his life insurance beneficiaries and will surely make a difference to his physicians’ malpractice carriers.

John

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