How did Tom Petty die?
Tom Petty
October 20, 1950 — October 2, 2017
Santa Monica, California
Tom Petty died on October 2, 2017 in Santa Monica, California, aged 66. The official cause of death was multisystem organ failure due to resuscitated cardiopulmonary arrest due to mixed drug toxicity. Readers have raised 2 theories about how it happened.
Thomas Earl Petty grew up in Gainesville, Florida, with a father who hit him and an uncle who took him to the set of an Elvis Presley movie when he was ten, which settled the question of what he was going to do. He was sixty-six when he died at UCLA Medical Center in Santa Monica, a week after playing the last of fifty-three shows on a fortieth-anniversary tour, three of them at the Hollywood Bowl.
With the Heartbreakers he made rock and roll that sounded like it had always existed: "American Girl," "Refugee," "Free Fallin'," "I Won't Back Down," "Learning to Fly," "Mary Jane's Last Dance." He fought his record company over a $1 price increase on an album and won. He was a Traveling Wilbury with George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Roy Orbison, and Jeff Lynne, and the only one of them who seemed surprised to be there. He was, by every account, loyal to the point of stubbornness and allergic to being told what to do.
He is survived by his wife, Dana, and his daughters, Adria and AnnaKim.
Photos with Tom
If you met him, this is where that photo goes. No one has added one yet.
The record
What is established, from the authorities and the people who were there.
Official cause: Multisystem organ failure due to resuscitated cardiopulmonary arrest due to mixed drug toxicity (fentanyl, oxycodone, temazepam, alprazolam, citalopram, acetyl fentanyl, despropionyl fentanyl). Accident. (Los Angeles County coroner, January 2018)
He was found unconscious and in cardiac arrest at his home in Malibu early on October 2, 2017, and taken to UCLA Medical Center in Santa Monica. He was placed on life support. Reports that he had died circulated that afternoon, were retracted, and then were true: he died at 8:40 p.m. He was 66.
In January 2018 the Los Angeles County coroner reported that he died of an accidental overdose of a mix of prescription medications, including fentanyl and oxycodone for pain, sedatives, and an antidepressant, along with two fentanyl analogs.
His wife and daughter issued a statement the same day. He had been playing the tour with a fractured hip, they said, which had worsened to a full break on the day he died, and he had been in constant pain. He had also had emphysema and knee problems. They said he had been prescribed the painkillers for the hip and that they believed the pain had driven the overuse: "We feel confident that this was, in fact, an unfortunate accident."
What happened
The cause of death has been confirmed. The theories below are how readers understand it, and what people thought before it was known. Everyone here is anonymous.
He played fifty-three shows on a broken hip, kept going with prescription painkillers, and died of them a week after the last one. Was it an accident, as his family says, or was the accident the tour?
The page creator
- Confirmed52 of 56 readers find this likely
An accidental overdose from pain medication, in a man touring on a broken hip
The coroner's finding and the family's account, which agree. He was in severe pain, had more than one prescription, and took more than one of them together. Emphysema made his breathing fragile. He died the way a lot of people in chronic pain die: not from any one pill, but from the stack. The family said it, and said it so other families would hear it.
Anonymous. Says they are a hospice nurse.
Confirmed by the Los Angeles County coroner, January 2018, and acknowledged by the family.
- Also raised40 of 47 readers find this likely
The tour killed him, and the pills were how
A fractured hip is a stop sign. He turned it into fifty-three shows. On this reading, the overdose was the last step in a decision to keep going that nobody around him was able to overrule. His family's statement comes close to saying this. The cause is the same; the responsibility is wider.
Anonymous.
- Also raised29 of 41 readers find this likely
Street fentanyl in the mix: the analogs weren't prescribed by anyone
Acetyl fentanyl and despropionyl fentanyl don't come from a pharmacy. Their presence means some of what he took was illicit, which means some of what he took was a different strength than anything a doctor had calibrated. It doesn't change the manner (accident) but it changes the story from "too many prescriptions" to "at least one thing that wasn't one."
Anonymous. Says they are a toxicologist.
The confirmed cause carries this mark and stays at the top. Theories can still be added; they sort below it.
"Mixed drug toxicity" means no single drug at a fatal level; the combination suppressed breathing until the heart stopped. The list here is a textbook dangerous mix: two opioids (fentanyl, oxycodone) plus two benzodiazepines (temazepam, alprazolam), all of which slow breathing, in a man with emphysema, whose lungs had less room for error than most.
"Resuscitated cardiopulmonary arrest" means his heart was restarted but the time without oxygen had already damaged his organs; "multisystem organ failure" is what killed him over the following hours on life support. The fentanyl analogs (acetyl fentanyl, despropionyl fentanyl) raise a question the coroner didn't answer: they are not in prescription fentanyl, so at least one of the drugs in his system came from somewhere other than a pharmacy.
Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner-Coroner, January 19, 2018 Statement from Dana and Adria Petty, January 19, 2018 Rolling Stone, "Tom Petty's Cause of Death: Accidental Overdose," 2018 Wikipedia, "Tom Petty"
Questions people ask
- What was Tom Petty's cause of death?
- The official cause of death was multisystem organ failure due to resuscitated cardiopulmonary arrest due to mixed drug toxicity.
- When did Tom Petty die?
- Tom died on October 2, 2017, at the age of 66, in Santa Monica, California.
- What happened to Tom Petty?
- 3 theories have been raised on this page and ranked by readers. The cause is settled; the theories are about understanding how it happened.
- Who else died in 2017?
- See everyone on Ohbit who died in 2017. Tom was 66.
Add a theory
Say what you think happened and why. You’re anonymous. If you have a reason to know (you were there, you do this for a living), you can say so.