The father of Heath Ledger has spoken of his heartache after his son’s tragic death from a deadly overdose back in 2008.
Kim Ledger claims that Heath’s sister, Kate, had warned The Dark Knight star not to mix his prescription medications the night before he died.
He described the sibling’s conversation to news.co.au saying she warned Heath: “You can’t mix drugs that you don’t know anything about.”
Unfortunately these warnings fell on deaf ears and he dismissed them, saying: Katie, Katie, I’ll be fine’, the 28-year-old died the next day after taking a lethal and toxic combination of drugs.
According to the toxicology report Heath’s death was an ‘accident, resulting from the abuse of prescribed medications’ caused by acute intoxication of oxycodone, hydrocodone, diazepam, temazepam, alprazolam and doxylamine.
Speaking plainly about his son’s death Kim went on to claim that Heath’s problems were ‘self induced’.
He said:
It was a one-off thing. That’s what killed us, because he was warned by his sister the night before: ‘You shouldn’t mix what you’re taking for pnemonia with your ambien’. But most of Heath’s problems were self-induced.
There is pressure on everybody, especially young people, to perform and to keep going.
He was a young guy that travelled all the time for work. Even as a two-year-old, he hardly ever slept. He was trying to work and travel and do everything in a short space of time.
Despite this, Mr Ledger says his son wasn’t a drug addict but simply made the mistake of mixing the wrong drugs.
Since Heath’s death eight years ago Kim has been campaigning to raise awareness about misusing prescription medication.
More of a concept than a journalist, Tom Percival was forged in the bowels of Salford University from which he emerged grasping a Masters in journalism.
Since then his rise has been described by himself as ‘meteoric’ rising to the esteemed rank of Social Editor at UNILAD as well as working at the BBC, Manchester Evening News, and ITV.
He credits his success to three core techniques, name repetition, personality mirroring, and never breaking off a handshake.