Tom Petty Cause of Death

[Broomstick]

I didn't want to necro this thread hence this one, compiled from numerous sources reporting on the official coroner's report and autopsy results.

Tom Petty died of an overdose of painkillers.

Apparently Mr. Petty had been on multiple medications, including the painkillers but also a generic Xanax (treats anxiety), Restoril (a sleep aid), generic Celexa (treats depression, which is an not uncommon complication of severe and/or chronic pain), and probably others not listed. He was on all those drugs due to the combined effects of emphysema, knee problems, coronary artery disease, and a fractured hip. It seems he had been touring with a fractured hip. Let me repeat that - he was touring on a fractured hip for 53 days.

OK, folks, I wish to pause this sad litany for a moment and say we really MUST be kinder to our artists and musicians. NO ONE should feel compelled to perform on stage with a fractured hip. We need to give these people permission to take time off to heal or even to retire rather than feel pressured to continue performing. Prince was another one eating pain pills to keep on performing and it killed him, too. These people aren't overdosing to get high, they're overdosing to end the pain, pain they are suffering for their fans, for us.

On the day he died and suffered a fatal heart attack/cardiac arrest his fractured hip had "graduated" to a full-on break leading to unbearable pain. This may have lead to an overdose from taking too much pain medication in an attempt to find relief. Although CPR restored a pulse to his body it seems he was already brain dead when he arrived at the hospital. Upon learning this his family made the decision to take him off life support.

A sad end to a talented man. May he rest in peace.

[Patroklos]

Is anyone really demanding they perform though? Sure people go to their shows because they are touring, but the aging rockers seem to come out or retirement or keep their grueling schedules out of a missed placed sense of loyalty to their fans rather than baying mobs demanding they tour. In the less charitable cases its just people chasing their glory days or compensating for squandering success and wealth most of us only dream of. Maybe they are in a bad contract deal stemming from those things.

In Petty's case I think it is the first, he has a miss placed sense of loyalty to his fans. I bet if you polled the attendees of his last tour and asked them if they would rather Petty continue knowing he has a broken hip and all his other problems, or cancel his tour and retire, most would say cancel and retire.

I appreciate his dedication and commitment, but you gotta look out for yourself too. And to be perfectly honest nothing Petty has ever done is so important it deserves a his life in exchange for a few mostly older fans recapturing their youth for a couple hours. At the same time Petty has agency, he does what he wants.

[TheFeniX]

He knew the risks. It sucks he's gone as even as someone born in the early 80s, I enjoy(ed) a lot of his music. If he wants to push himself into an early grave, that's his right as an artist and a person. Where I draw the line here is with a lot of athletes/athletics where billions are at stake and the dangers of the job are hidden from the athletes by money grubbing scumbags such as the NFL (and boxing commissions to a lesser extent) doing everything they can to suppress research into injury studies (concussions being one), including intimidation and lobbying lawmakers.

Now, if you know the risk and still want to trade your health for millions of dollars, fame, and all the sex and drugs that come along with it: that's also your right. Except ANOTHER beef I have here is that kids getting into sports like football risk permanent health problems to emulate their heroes. With the Rock and Roll lifestyle, you generally have to make it big to get killed by said lifestyle.

NOTE: I'm not saying he in any way deserved to die or shitty fans demanding encores and shit aren't shitty fans. But he was a grown ass man who already made a significant mark on the industry. He wanted another hurrah, and from what I could tell: he was getting it. He died and everyone lost their marbles. Dolores O’Riordan died and no one outside the UK seems to care.

EDIT: I'm probably jaded since the only musician I ever possibly could have idolized to the point of "please sign this" levels of fandom would have been Freddie Mercury as that guy is good example if you were trying to explain the concept of "artist" to someone. And he died when I was like 9 so... shit sucks.

[Gandalf]

Yeah, a lot of people in entertainment from sports to acting get really hooked on that lifestyle. Each performance night they're treated as gods for doing a thing they (presumably) love doing, and it's hard for people to walk away from that.

Sports is probably the best example of this. There's examples all over of guys who should have walked away, but stuck around and spent their lives paying the price.

[Simon_Jester]

Yeah.

Rock stars get (and got) overwhelmingly positive feedback for doing what they do. If a given rock star works himself to death, it's far more likely to be because he craves that positive feedback more than he fears dying, than that he fears his fans being angry about him for canceling a tour when he breaks his hip.

[Broomstick]

And yet - if a star cancels a concert fans howl and some even sue. We had a thread not so long ago about whether the attendees of a play deserve a refund if the headliner isn't performing when they see the play.

It's ridiculous to pretend that ALL the impulse to perform comes from the stars themselves. An individual fan has little force, but then so does one little stone rolling down a hill. Many fans are like many pebbles - a landslide.

Once an artist commits to performing on tour, well, it's a commitment - he could have legal consequences, screaming fans on social media, all sorts of fall out if he fails to get on stage.

Personally, I'd rather have seen Petty say "guys, I have a fractured hip, I gotta cancel, heal up, and then we'll see about me coming back" rather than see him work himself to death, which is basically what happened. This wasn't a matter of him performing and suddenly getting nailed by a heart attack on stage, this was fifty-three days of performing with a severe injury. It's self-harm to a lethal degree. It doesn't look like his intention was to kill himself, it was to get pain relief, so saying he "died doing what he loved" is macabre to me - I think Mr. Petty would have preferred to live so he could have done more of what he loved to do.

I find it tragic that this is how he went out. Worse yet, it didn't have to happen that way. He shouldn't have been touring with a broken hip, he should have gone to hospital when the pain spiked instead of self-medicating, he didn't have to die. Not yet. But he did. Because of expectations that "the show must go on".

[Zaune]

I don't know all that much about Tom Petty, but it occurs to me that there are a lot of musicians -even quite popular ones- who are still touring up until they keel over dead on-stage not because they love the job so much that they refuse to retire, but because they can't afford to retire thanks to being duped into signing bad contracts when they were newbies. Could he have been one of them?

[Broomstick]

He also had a shitload of medical problems - he might have had some big bills to go with them. He had also had a heroin addiction in the past, had his house deliberately burned down by an arsonist at one point, and between that and everything else he might not have had that much money left from his career. Yeah, he might have been trying to pay the bills.

Even so - working yourself to death is just so sad.

[TheFeniX]

True, and it's hard to know what pushes people. My dad almost died working. Had a respiratory infection, cough kept getting worse and worse. We kept telling him to go see a doctor, instead he kept driving/getting on planes working jobsites, etc. And everyone was willing to step in for him. Worse than that, there was nothing to really "step in" for since we all do/did what he does. We all work jobsites, we're qualified for it.

After 3 weeks, my mom finally dragged him into the car and took him to the ER. Doctor said if he had waited a few more days to a week, he'd be dead. And I mean, he's a Geologist. There's no adoring fans to flagellate him, he just loves working that much. We are actually worried he'll die in the field at the age of 70 because he'd rather die working than sitting in a chair collecting on retirement.

So, I feel for Petty both ways. But also that I don't think a lot of the posters left here are the kinds of fans of entertainment to be the ones demanding entertainers perform themselves into an early grave. I know I'm not, I just don't care enough. I'm nice enough to musicians by buying their music if I like it. I can't give them money for live performances because the idea of dealing with batshit screaming fans in a large venue does not work for me.

Even if I met someone like Patrick Stewart, John DiMaggio, or Laura Bailey, it would be a quick "hi, I enjoy your work, goodbye" because I doubt I have anything interesting to offer in a conversation with them. Unless they wanted to discuss TRRP PCLs or why SWTOR requires admin level access to run in 2018.

[Broomstick]

Well, actually I did recently encounter someone whose worked I liked. I went up to him and said "Thank you for all the books, I really enjoyed them, and I look forward to your next ones." Unexpectedly, this lead to an actual conversation, in part because someone else nearby said "You know, it's surprising how infrequently someone just says "thank you"".

But I don't make a special effort to seek people out, it was a (largely) chance encounter. I'm not one demanding performers work themselves to death, either. In fact, I have often stated (and stated to that very author) I'd rather wait longer for a good work than have things mindlessly churned out. I understand creators have lives of their own they need to live outside of the spotlight in order to remain sane and creative human beings. They also need to take care of themselves. Petty is just another in a long line to work themselves to death.

[LadyTevar]

I thought the fractured hip was undiagnosed? He didn't KNOW he had a fracture?

[Broomstick]

Undiagnosed or not, that's a lot of pain - and someone had to prescribe those drugs, didn't they? They didn't say anything about illegally obtained medication.

[whackadoodle]

A hip fracture is painful, yes. Whether it was a fracture in the ball or a snap on the femoral neck would determine his behavior afterwards. I'd assume on the ball of the joint. A fracture in the femoral neck would put him in the hospital ortho wing regardless of the painkillers Petty was abusing. Morphine helps less than weights hung from the ankles ( to pull the bones straight ). If it was a crack in the joint-ball, however, it MIGHT be managed by pain-meds for a short while. Disclosure: I broke my hip in an accident 11 years ago, had it pinned, and as commonly happens, have femoral neck necrosis. It is a a common result of hip repair surgery done from age 30-45. Long story short, the ball of my hip looks like a T-rex fossil with bolts sticking out. Painful. It wakes me up after about 2 hours, and every hour after that.

I take no opiates, no anti-anxiety meds, no sleep-aids other than benadryl and melatonin.

On the other hand, I don't jump from stage risers, guitar in my hands.

Also, musician's income have been decimated by the internet. Unless you are Paul McCartney or a member of the 'Stones, you'll have to tour in order to make bank.

[whackadoodle]

Undiagnosed or not, that's a lot of pain - and someone had to prescribe those drugs, didn't they? They didn't say anything about illegally obtained medication.

My post earlier didn't clearly make the point, but this. He had the fracture for 53 days, and a doctor/doctors, instead of insisting he get real treatment or GTFO, prescribed painkillers to allow him to continue to fuck up his hip?

[Gandalf]

And yet - if a star cancels a concert fans howl and some even sue. We had a thread not so long ago about whether the attendees of a play deserve a refund if the headliner isn't performing when they see the play.

It's ridiculous to pretend that ALL the impulse to perform comes from the stars themselves. An individual fan has little force, but then so does one little stone rolling down a hill. Many fans are like many pebbles - a landslide.

Once an artist commits to performing on tour, well, it's a commitment - he could have legal consequences, screaming fans on social media, all sorts of fall out if he fails to get on stage.

Most contracts in long term performance, especially the ones with which I've worked, all have medical "outs" for the performers, which can then trigger stuff with the concert promoters with respect to ticket sales. I imagine someone of Petty's age would be well covered in that respect.

[TheFeniX]

My post earlier didn't clearly make the point, but this. He had the fracture for 53 days, and a doctor/doctors, instead of insisting he get real treatment or GTFO, prescribed painkillers to allow him to continue to fuck up his hip?

Even electing for surgery on my back, it would have been about 2 months before the doctor had an appointment for a procedure like that and it would have "only" been an endoscopic procedure. I have no idea what it takes to put a hip back together.

So, up until my "final walkthrough" whatever stuff they wanted to do before actually scheduling it, they just loaded me up on painkillers and told me to "take it easy." Sidenote: the day of my exam, the doctor was 4 hours late (he was in surgery) and the guy who was once REALLY gungho to cut me open was instead talking about physical therapy.... I have to assume he lost someone on the table or had some really bad complications.

Getting a doctor to (legitmately, mind you) load you up on opiates is just not hard. Especially when they can look at an xray/MRI and say "yep, I bet that hurts." When the doctor looked at my MRI and then the 8mm and 4mm protrusions paperwork his comment was "before we do anything, I'm going to get you a scrip for hydrocodine." I mean, I'm not saying that's a bad thing, but at that point he had this photograph of what my pain looked like: you can't fake that.

You also have to deal with doctor shopping, doctors who might be fans (thus they roll over for the patient), or doctors who just don't push their patient to do what needs to be done (like my wife's doctor).

Now, there could be the case that the doctors said "you'll be fine, walk it off," but a fractured hip can heal on it's own in 3-4 months (though I doubt it will if you're jumping around on stage). Maybe he wasn't a surgery candidate, maybe he didn't WANT surgery, who knows? But at some point, you have to wonder if a 65 year-old man has enough wherewithal to make his own decisions about his life. To understand "I'm in incredible pain, DO SOMETHING or I'l find a doctor that will because I'm Tom Fucking Petty."

I put up with back-pain where certain movements felt like someone was jamming a knife into my left kidney. That movement was "turn left" so... it was a routine feeling. Pain so sharp, my left leg would just give out and I'd drop to a knee. I actually just ate it once (well, a few times, but mostly in private), thankfully on the carpeted entrance, at Target. Face-first, but caught myself with my non-cane holding hand. And people are surrounding me to help and I'm just fucking mortified that happened. And I'm just like "don't help me, you'll make it worse" because helping me up just made the pain worse and my leg would give out again, so I'd hit the floor... again. So, everyone backs up while I work myself into a position to get back up, the entire time thinking "thank God this isn't my usual shopping area or I'd die of embarrassment. I'm not even 30, I have no right to be this weak."

I just put up with it like an idiot because that's my right as a grown-ass man. And my doctors didn't push me into thinking like an idiot, I was perfectly capable of handling that part on my own.

I did this because surgery scared the shit out of me: I could die, I could be paralyzed, the expense. So I dealt with painkillers the doctors were handing out like candy and I could get filled for $20, alcohol, and a lot of limping. By the time I considered surgery just to "get it over with" my protrusions had healed to the point I was no longer a surgical candidate, at least it would have pushed it into "elective surgery" so insurance would have covered jackshit.

And that was my right as a bull-headed dumbass to do it that way. And I dealt with all kinds of doctors during that time. Pill dispensers, physical therapy pushers, surgery pushers, etc. So, I definitely feel for Petty in the pain area, but my experience leads me (possibly wrongly) to conclude "a grown man made a decision and paid for it."

[Broomstick]

Well, yeah - that's exactly it. A grown man made a decision and paid for it. As did Prince. But the "walk it off" attitude can be downright toxic. Also, I'm pretty sure that even if a hip fracture is the sort that can heal on its own, that healing probably involves staying off it a lot, NOT doing a world tour as a rock star.

Petty was almost certainly headed for a heart attack at some point given his overall state of health but I think we all would have preferred it to be later rather than sooner.

[TheFeniX]

Well, yeah - that's exactly it. A grown man made a decision and paid for it. As did Prince. But the "walk it off" attitude can be downright toxic. Also, I'm pretty sure that even if a hip fracture is the sort that can heal on its own, that healing probably involves staying off it a lot, NOT doing a world tour as a rock star.

You won't get an argument from me here. My back-pain hadn't subsided to the point where I could go without the cane 2 weeks before I went to my cousin's wedding. Afterward, loading stuff up I'm just standing there and my brother says "you're going to let her (some rando woman) carry that stuff and just stand there?" When I responded with sanity, his comment was of course "Well, you're fine since you don't have the cane anymore." And this "manly man" thing is really big in sports, even into peewee leagues, and I would like it to just die. And while women can generally be immune to it, female sports are not.

But I, stupidly trying to be macho, decided to lend a hand. Luckily, I didn't injure myself further.

Petty was almost certainly headed for a heart attack at some point given his overall state of health but I think we all would have preferred it to be later rather than sooner.

True and you can fault a lot of different people/areas for what leads a guy like Petty to kill himself for his art/job. But at the end of the day, we all have to take the lion's share of responsibility for our actions and the consequences. I can only really hope Petty DID die doing what he loved.

[Broomstick]

When I responded with sanity, his comment was of course "Well, you're fine since you don't have the cane anymore." And this "manly man" thing is really big in sports, even into peewee leagues, and I would like it to just die. And while women can generally be immune to it, female sports are not.

If anyone ever asks you how institutionalized bias in society harms men point to that. It really does harm men, it even kills them sometimes, and just as I want to root out harmful sexism that hurts women this is an example of toxic sexism that hurts men that I want to see gone as well.

[Zixinus]

There should be a point made about distinguishing between choosing to IGNORE pain and choosing to ENDURE pain. The difference being is that the pain and its cause is accepted, rather than put in denial. But as I write this I am still not sure whether that holds up.

[Elfdart]

I thought the fractured hip was undiagnosed? He didn't KNOW he had a fracture?

Undiagnosed or not, that's a lot of pain - and someone had to prescribe those drugs, didn't they? They didn't say anything about illegally obtained medication.

My post earlier didn't clearly make the point, but this. He had the fracture for 53 days, and a doctor/doctors, instead of insisting he get real treatment or GTFO, prescribed painkillers to allow him to continue to fuck up his hip?

After my car wreck I didn't realize I had a hairline fracture in my hip until I pivoted my leg while stepping up on a curb a day or so later. The fracture didn't show up on an X-ray and finally a month later (fuck you, Cigna!) I was allowed to get a bone scan, which found the injury. After the operation, I was unable to walk for about three months other than a few feet at a time and had to use a walker or crutches for another six.

I am very grateful (especially these days) that Roxicet gives me terrible pain in the abdomen and hydrocodone makes me constipated or I could have easily turned into a dope addict waiting for treatment thanks to this fucktarded medical system we Americans are cursed with.

I don't know all that much about Tom Petty, but it occurs to me that there are a lot of musicians -even quite popular ones- who are still touring up until they keel over dead on-stage not because they love the job so much that they refuse to retire, but because they can't afford to retire thanks to being duped into signing bad contracts when they were newbies. Could he have been one of them?

He got his start in the 70s, so more than likely, yes.

Very few big-time rockers voluntarily retire. I can think of only three: The Stones' Bill Wyman, and Mike Pinder and Ray Thomas (who just recently died of cancer) of the Moody Blues.

OK, folks, I wish to pause this sad litany for a moment and say we really MUST be kinder to our artists and musicians. NO ONE should feel compelled to perform on stage with a fractured hip. We need to give these people permission to take time off to heal or even to retire rather than feel pressured to continue performing. Prince was another one eating pain pills to keep on performing and it killed him, too. These people aren't overdosing to get high, they're overdosing to end the pain, pain they are suffering for their fans, for us.

Keith Emerson was quite simply the most talented musician I ever saw perform. Thanks to injuries, old age, a neurological disorder and severe depression, he simply couldn't play like he did when he was a young man. He ended up killing himself.

[Gandalf]

I don't know all that much about Tom Petty, but it occurs to me that there are a lot of musicians -even quite popular ones- who are still touring up until they keel over dead on-stage not because they love the job so much that they refuse to retire, but because they can't afford to retire thanks to being duped into signing bad contracts when they were newbies. Could he have been one of them?

He got his start in the 70s, so more than likely, yes

Interestingly, Petty was one of those who managed to beat that system, and was sort of a hero for it in the world of music business. He made a lot more money starting in the early eighties, and died with a net worth of thirty five to forty million USD.