http://www.cnn.com/2008/S...index.html


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(CNN) -- Heath Ledger died from an accidental overdose of prescription medications including painkillers, anti-anxiety drugs and sleeping pills, the New York City medical examiner's office said Tuesday.


Actor Heath Ledger, 28, died January 22 at an apartment in Lower Manhattan.



"We have concluded that the manner of death is accident, resulting from the abuse of prescription medications."

Hydrocodone and oxycodone are painkillers. Diazepam is an anti-anxiety drug commonly sold under the brand name Valium; alprazolam is also an anti-anxiety drug, sold under such names as Xanax. Temazepam, sold under such names as Restoril and Euhypnos, is a sleeping agent, as is doxylamine.

Ledger died January 22 at an apartment in Lower Manhattan. The Oscar-nominated Australian actor, best known for his role as a stoic, closeted cowboy in the 2005 film "Brokeback Mountain," was 28.

An autopsy done on the actor January 23 was inconclusive. Interactive: A look back at Heath Ledger's life »

A housekeeper, identified as Teresa Solomon, arrived at the apartment about 12:30 p.m. on the day Ledger died, a police source with knowledge of the investigation said.

She saw Ledger lying on a bed face down with a sheet pulled up around his shoulders and heard him snoring, the source said.

Masseuse Diana Wolozin arrived at the apartment about 2:45 p.m. to give Ledger a massage, according to the police source. About 15 minutes later, when he had not come out of the bedroom and the door remained closed, she went in, saw him lying in bed and set up a massage table.


She shook Ledger, but he did not respond, so she used his cell phone to call actress Mary-Kate Olsen, a friend of Ledger's, in California, the source said.

Wolozin told Olsen that Ledger was unconscious, according to the police source.

Olsen reportedly told her that she would call private security people in New York.

At 3:26 p.m., Wolozin called 911 and told authorities Ledger was not breathing. While on the phone with dispatchers, Wolozin tried to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation on Ledger, but he was unresponsive.

Emergency personnel arrived seven minutes later, according to the police source, at about the same time as a private security person summoned by Olsen.

The medical technicians performed CPR on Ledger and used a cardiac defibrillator, but their efforts were in vain and he was pronounced dead at 3:36 p.m. By then, two other private security people summoned by Olsen had arrived as well as police.

Ledger's family called his death "very tragic, untimely and accidental." Relatives returned home Tuesday to Perth, Australia, where a private funeral ceremony reportedly will be held, according to The Associated Press. The timing of the funeral is unclear, the AP said.

His former fiancée, actress Michelle Williams, has asked the public to respect the need for her, the couple's 2-year-old daughter, Matilda, and others "to grieve privately."

"My heart is broken," Williams said in a statement issued last week via her publicist. "I am the mother of the most tender-hearted, high-spirited, beautiful little girl who is the spitting image of her father. All that I can cling to is his presence inside her that reveals itself every day. His family and I watch Matilda as she whispers to trees, hugs animals, and takes steps two at a time, and we know that he is with us still. She will be brought up in the best memories of him."

Condolences poured in from Ledger's friends and co-stars.

"He was a wonderful guy, he was a wonderful actor, he had a wonderful future ahead of him, and I liked him," said actor Eric Roberts, who worked with Ledger in "The Dark Knight," the latest installment in the "Batman" series set to open in July.

Colleagues on the Terry Gilliam's film "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus," which Ledger had been shooting in England, said the actor apparently had been suffering from a respiratory ailment in the days before he died.

Christopher Plummer told Entertainment Weekly that Ledger had a "terrible, lingering bug in London, and he couldn't sleep at all. We all -- I thought he'd probably got walking pneumonia."


Ledger's first American film was the teen comedy "10 Things I Hate About You" in 1999. He passed up several scripts before taking a role in the Revolutionary War drama "The Patriot" in 2000 and "A Knight's Tale" in 2001. He also played a supporting role in "Monster's Ball."

But Ledger was perhaps best known for his portrayal of Ennis Del Mar in "Brokeback Mountain," Ang Lee's film about two cowboys who had a secret romantic relationship. The role earned Ledger a best actor Oscar nomination
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[Edited 2/6/08 7:52am]

newpower99 said:

drug addiction...

that's shit replicates the high felt from heroine...

As I thought ...

It is a bit scary that people do not know ( or think it wont happen to them ) what mixing drugs and misuse of them can do

Geez, how unfortunate.

I hope for the best for all involved parties.

Mach said:

Even scarier is the thought of doctors prescribing shitloads of this stuff to individuals.

well there's a shocking development.

JustErin said:

very true

or people just taking a Drs word and not educating themselves on what options they have

Mach said:

I wouldn't be surprised if the doses for each were low. People just have no idea how even mixing low doses is dangerous.

sosgemini said:

No, not oxycodone...oxycontin is the one that people went nuts over that is almost like heroine.

This is how my brother died. Except his was oxycontin and xanax. Both prescribed to him at the same time with no warnings of taking them together. One pill each and he died. What a shame. Doctors need to stop prescribing so much medicine together.

CarrieLee said:

CarrieLee said:

isn't oxycodone the drug used to make oxycontin?

sorry to hear about your bub...and your right, we need to get these pills under control. however, in the case of folks like ledger and ana nicole smith i think they are just as responsible as the doctors...taking a cocktail mixture of stuff just isn't healthy.

sosgemini said:

I'm not sure, I just know it's not as strong as oxycontin. It's more like a vicodin. Oxycontin is ridiculously strong and time released so it's good for cancer patients or people in constant pain. It's prescribed way too much though.

Anna obviously had drug problems so the doctors should not have prescribed all that shit in the first place. How can someone who's already fucked up say no to a doctor who is willing to prescribe in the first place? Doctors should know better.

As far as Heath is concerned, I have no idea if he had drug problems. In my brother's case, both drugs were prescribed at the same time with no warnings of taking them at the same time from the Doctor OR the pharmacy. He took the recommended dose and died. He thought that he was taking the medicine properly.

I am sure it happens a lot..sadly.
I have had many drs write me scripts before asking me if I was allergic to anything and without asking what other meds I was on.
You really do have to research meds before you start taking them and then take as prescribed.
It is always good to check with the pharmacist when you have it filled. They know more about drugs than the doctors.

Still sad and tragic that it took such a young talented father, son and brother.


Sorry about your brother CarrieLee

that really sucks

Valium,Vicoden,Oxycode,Xanax AND sleeping pills!

What Doctor would allow him all those active perscriptions at once?

JustErin said:

Exactly, low doses or not, that's too many damn drugs!

The VERY reasom why I don't do chemicals.....meds, and the like. 4 everything one they do "positive" 4 u, there are 10 side effects.

He had 7 different drugs in his system. How is this and accidental overdose? Anybody with common sense would know better than to take all of those drugs at the same time. He was either a junkie or he tried to kill himself.

It's unfortunate when anybody dies. I don't see what all the fuss is about over heath ledger. He has been in a couple of films. The act like he was robert deniro or something.

Heath was just another young hollywood star out of control.

Another death from legal drugs.

When will people leran of the corruption.

Just becuase you are told they are safe doesn't mean they are. Just becuase you are told they are dangerous it does not mean they are.


If he had smoked 2 ounzes of skunk instead of downing lots of chemical shit he'd be chillin like a villian.

Sweeny79 said:

perhaps he had more than one doctor

PEJ said:

I figure he did...but don't they cross reference records?

jaimestarr79 said:

"They" are making a big deal outta him because his short movie career was full of brilliant performances. That, and the fact that he was considered an extremely kind and sincere, genuinely nice guy by everyone who crossed his path.

He appears to be someone who was troubled (like many, many, many people are) and fell into a cycle of medicating his pain (physical and mental) with prescription drugs. That's hardly someone "out of control" in the sense that I think you're talking about.

trust me, there are tons of people with way more than 7 medications in their system at any given time...senior citizens for example....many older folks are taking unbelievable amounts of perscriptions..and there are alot of those folks dying for the same reasons...people simply aren't well informed about the dangers of perscription medicine...

roodboi said:

Exactly, that is the biggest crime here, and it really should expose the criminal element of these doctors and companies that keep giving shit to people. I mean there is a pill for anything these days and the side effects are insane, and its all legal, and no one regulates it or questions it, and why? they contribute to campaigns and washington. I mean lets be serious, there is a pill for "shyness" are you fucking kidding me! U wanna know how to kill shyness, Scotch and Water.

lastdecember said:

I hear u.....but the pills don't pop themselves.

Graycap23 said:

exactly. and these pills he was popping weren't for arthritis and high blood pressure.

Graycap23 said:

Why would I want to take something for insomnia when the side effect is vomiting and blood clots? There is no control over these pharmaceutical companies because too much money goes to Washington. (someone else said this already) Money, money, money. That's all that matters. How many people die from drug interaction that we never hear about? People who are not famous.

Doctors write prescriptions for money.



CarrieLee.

as sad as it is, im happy all this crap is cleared up...i was sick and tired of the media reporting they have videos of him doing coke, smoking weed and all types of illegal shit! Maybe they just were not testing for that stuff, but maybe they did and all that media crap is just what it is CRAP!

Why dont they worry about their own lives rather than people who dont mean anything to them?

Sweeny79 said:

they can but there are loop holes and crooked doctors