Tom Petty's Cause of Death: Accidental Overdose

After months of speculation, a medical examiner has ruled that Tom Petty died of an accidental overdose, according to a statement from the Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner.

The Hall of Fame musician had taken many pain medications, including Fentanyl, oxycodone and generic Xanax. Other medications included generic Restoril (a sleep aid) and generic Celexa (which treats depression).

The coroner's office listed Petty's official cause of death as "multisystem organ failure due to resuscitated cardiopulmonary arrest due to mixed drug toxicity," noting the singer suffered from coronary artery atherosclerosis and emphysema.

Petty had been given the drugs to treat emphysema, knee issues, and a fractured hip, his family said in a statement accompanying the results. Petty's coronary artery disease had been a constant problem.

"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," Petty's wife Dana and daughter Adria wrote in the statement. "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 the cause of his overuse of medicine."

Petty was found unconscious and not breathing at his Malibu home on October 2nd. He was rushed to a hospital Although he had a pulse, doctors found no brain activity. He died hours later.

The singer had recently completed a 40th-anniversary tour with his band, the Heartbreakers. It was intended to be "the last trip around the country," though he told Rolling Stone "I need something to do, or I tend to be a nuisance around the house," he said

Petty said he had experimented with cocaine over the years ("[It] was never a good look," he told Men's Journal) and drinking ("I did not like the taste or the buzz," he said). But it was in the late nineties when he was in his late 40s and two decades later he would become a superstar, that he developed an addiction to heroin after a divorce from his first wife. "Tried to go cold turkey, and that did not work," he said in Warren Zanes' book Petty: The Biography. "It's an ugly fucking thing." He sought out treatment for his addiction and remarried in 2001.

"Using heroin goes against my grain," Petty said in the book. "I did not want to be enslaved to anything." Then I was always trying to figure out how to do less, and then that would not work. thing. "

Since his death, many artists have paid tribute to Petty onstage. Country artist Jason Aldean dedicated some of his time as the musical guest on Saturday Night Live to sing "I Will Not Back Down." Bob Dylan performed Petty's "Learning to Fly" at a concert in Broomfield, Colorado. And Dave Matthews, Emmylou Harris, and others "Refugee" at a benefit show in Seattle Petty's Greatest Hits album subsequently made it to the Number Two spot on the Billboard chart after his death.

He was laid on October 16th at a private service in Pacific Palisades, California.

Petty's family said he hoped the musician's death leads to a broader understanding of the opioid crisis. "As a family, we recognize this report may spark a further discussion on the opioid crisis and we feel that it is a healthy and necessary discussion and we hope in some way this report can save lives," they wrote. "Many people who overdose begin with a legitimate injury or simply do not understand the potency and deadly nature of these medications."