Tom Petty's cause of death: accidental pain medication overdose

[Miles Archer]

Tom Petty died of an accidental overdose on pain medication, according to an official statement from his family this evening. The Heartbreakers frontman passed away last October shortly after completing a tour celebrating the band's 40th anniversary.

His family's full statement is below.

Our family sat together this morning with the Medical Examiner – Coroner’s office and we were informed of their final analysis that Tom Petty passed away due to an accidental drug overdose as a result of taking a variety of medications.

Unfortunately Tom’s body suffered from many serious ailments including emphysema, knee problems and most significantly a fractured hip.

Despite this painful injury he insisted on keeping his commitment to his fans and he toured for 53 dates with a fractured hip and, as he did, it worsened to a more serious injury.

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.

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.

http://ultimateclassicrock.com/tom-petty-cause-of-death-overdose/

[lunasun]

1. Oh wow would not have guessed he was doing that last tour of 53 dates with a fractured hip

The link said he has been using pain meds through most of the tour
My understanding is you build up such a tolerance over time on these