A top forensics doctor said yesterday it’s highly unlikely Heath Ledger could have accidentally overdosed on the prescription pills found in his apartment.
Ledger had six types of prescription pills issued in his name in his SoHo apartment – primarily ge neric versions of the anti- anxiety medica tions Xanax and Valium – when he died Tues day afternoon.
Two types of sleep aids, Donor myl and Zopiclone, were found next to Ledger, whose cause of death remains under review by authorities. At least some of the pills apparently had been purchased overseas.
“The pills generally have a large safety margin,” said Dr. Michael Baden. “You just don’t take one extra pill and die.”
Baden said fatal overdoses of the pills can occur, but typically only if a person takes 10, 20 or even more at one time. That is far beyond the recommended dosage, and well beyond what someone might take accidentally, even if he was groggy and forgot he already had taken a pill, Baden said.
“We don’t see very many deaths from the common sleeping pills,” said Baden, chief forensic pathologist for the New York State Police, and the former chief medical examiner of New York City.
Baden also said that if someone is prescribed pills under a wide variety of brand names – as Ledger was – for a single purpose such as sleep, it could indicate that person was abusing the drugs.
Prescription pills are “probably abused more than illegal drugs,” Baden said.