Smith died of accidental overdose
DANIA BEACH, Fla. – Anna Nicole Smith accidentally overdosed on at least nine prescription drugs – including a powerful sleep syrup she was known to swig right out of the bottle – after a miserable last few days in which she endured stomach flu, a 105-degree fever, sweating and an infection on her buttocks from repeated injections.
In a detailed autopsy report released Monday, a medical examiner noted the former Playboy playmate refused to go to a hospital three days before her Feb. 8 death. She chose to ride out her illness in a hotel suite littered with pill bottles, soda cans, SlimFast, nicotine gum and an open box of Tamiflu tablets.
Broward County Medical Examiner Dr. Joshua Perper found that in the days leading up to her death, the 39-year-old Smith had been taking large amounts of the seldom-prescribed sedative chloral hydrate, which also contributed to the 1962 overdose death of Smith’s idol, Marilyn Monroe.
Police found no apparent signs of foul play, and the medical examiner also ruled Smith’s death probably was not a suicide because people who take their own lives typically use much more lethal drugs than chloral hydrate.
Rather, he said, Smith might have been simply unaware that the sedative could be fatal in combination with multiple other prescriptions she was taking in normal doses for anxiety, depression and insomnia.
Contributing factors included her weakened condition from a stomach flu and fever brought on by an infection from repeated injection of other drugs.
The recommended dose of chloral hydrate is one to two teaspoons prior to bed. Smith often took two tablespoons, and she sometimes drank directly from the bottle, the report said.
A statement issued by lawyers for Howard K. Stern, Smith’s companion who was with her before her death, said that Stern and Smith’s physician urged her to get emergency treatment but she refused because “she did not want the media frenzy that follows her.”
The autopsy report left some unanswered questions such as why it took so long for emergency personnel to be summoned when Smith was discovered unresponsive Feb. 8 in her room at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino.