When Gerald Levert died, we were told that the cause of death was likely a heart attack. Test results came back and the actual cause of death is drug overdose. This is sad and disheartening. Such a loss and it could have been avoided. :( :( :(
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R&B singer Gerald Levert died last fall from an accidental mix of prescription and over-the-counter drugs, a coroner said.

Levert, 40, son of O’Jays singer Eddie Levert, died Nov. 10 in his suburban Cleveland home. Drugs in his bloodstream included narcotic pain relievers Vicodin, Percocet and Darvocet along with anxiety medication Xanax and two over-the-counter antihistamines, Geauga County Coroner Kevin Chartrand said.

Chartrand said his office received a report Thursday from the Cuyahoga County coroner’s office, which conducted the autopsy. The official cause of death was acute intoxication, and the death was ruled accidental.

The autopsy also revealed that Levert had pneumonia, he said.

Andy Gibson, a family spokesman, said Levert lived with chronic pain from a lingering shoulder problem and surgery in 2005 to repair a severed Achilles tendon. “That was the main reason he was taking pain medication,” Gibson said. He said Levert also took Xanax for anxiety attacks.

Levert had returned from a concert tour in South Africa about a week before his death, Gibson said. He performed hard and had a long airplane ride and was complaining of a bite on his back when he returned home.

All of these factors combined to leave Levert in severe pain, Gibson said.

The combination of drugs proved to be lethal and probably stopped Levert’s breathing, Chartrand said.

That is so sad. He was so young. Anna Nicole's son Daniel's death and Gerald Levert's death are proof that you have to be careful with prescription and over the counter drugs. It's not always cocaine or heroin that kills.

:eek:

WOW!! Was is up with all these drug related deaths?!

That is so sad. He was so young. Anna Nicole's son Daniel's death and Gerald Levert's death are proof that you have to be careful with presciption and over the counter drugs. It's not always cocaine or heroin that kills.
Exactly. When I heard the news I couldn't help but think of Daniel Smith. And now Anna???? This just proves that people CAN DIE when they mix prescription meds and other kinds of drugs (legal or illegal).

Juicy girl, I know what you mean, what is going on here????????

Exactly. When I heard the news I couldn't help but think of Daniel Smith. And now Anna???? This just proves that people CAN DIE when they mix prescription meds and other kinds of drugs (legal or illegal).

Juicy girl, I know what you mean, what is going on here????????

This is very sad, for some reason I never expected this from Levert at all, my god, truly sad. I feel for his daughter, I saw her on "Super Sweet 16" on MTV and she seemed like a HUGE daddy's girl. For her to hear that her daddy died of a drug overdose would crush her heart. Trust me, I lost a cousin to a deadly drug overdose three weeks after my mother's death when I was ten and to hear about a loved one overdosing is very painful.

So sorry to hear that girlfriend. I can sympathize. When it comes to drugs/alcohol, it really is sad.

I was really shocked when I heard this news on the radio. I was like WTF??? He was suffering from pneumonia and he was treating it like a cold, by using over the counter stuff. He didn't know he had pneumonia. The coroner discovered pneumonia during the autopsy. This is a death that could've been prevented.

So sorry to hear that girlfriend. I can sympathize. When it comes to drugs/alcohol, it really is sad.

I was really shocked when I heard this news on the radio. I was like WTF??? He was suffering from pneumonia and he was treating it like a cold, by using over the counter stuff. He didn't know he had pneumonia. The coroner discovered pneumonia during the autopsy. This is a death that could've been prevented.

Drugs/Alcohol is nothing to mess with, yes I agree. My father was a raging alcoholic and abuser who without shame killed my mother after he drank two glasses of vodka, so yes, it's a terrible thing. The same with my cousin, she purposely overdosed to dull the pain of losing her aunt, and she was only 14 years old.

But, Levert's death could have been prevented, so could Anna and Daniel's.

Drugs/Alcohol is nothing to mess with, yes I agree. My father was a raging alcoholic and abuser who without shame killed my mother after he drank two glasses of vodka, so yes, it's a terrible thing. The same with my cousin, she purposely overdosed to dull the pain of losing her aunt, and she was only 14 years old.

But, Levert's death could have been prevented, so could Anna and Daniel's.
Without a doubt, lives lost due to alcohol/drugs are theeeee most preventable. The lives lost due to those two causes does more than take lives away. It leaves lives behind to deal with the loss of a loved one and the questions that linger. I have nothing BUT SYMPATHY for those who have had to deal with those kind of losses. I sense your pain and anger at what you have had to deal with. I feel for you, really I do. I know all abt alcohol, since my ex-husband had that issue and it really cost him his life, even though he turned his life around, his liver suffered irreparable damage from the years of being an alcoholic. He died at 49 last year. No one knows the pain until you go through it.

Without a doubt, lives lost due to alcohol/drugs are theeeee most preventable. The lives lost due to those two causes does more than take lives away. It leaves lives behind to deal with the loss of a loved one and the questions that linger. I have nothing BUT SYMPATHY for those who have had to deal with those kind of losses. I sense your pain and anger at what you have had to deal with. I feel for you, really I do. I know all abt alcohol, since my ex-husband had that issue and it really cost him his life, even though he turned his life around, his liver suffered irreparable damage from the years of being an alcoholic. He died at 49 last year. No one knows the pain until you go through it.

I'm so sorry to hear that, It's wonderful that he turned his life around but at the same time truly sad.

I was only ten and my sister was six years old when my father killed my mother. From the outside, he was a well-respected businessman and to others, thought we lived the posh life but behind closed doors, he terrorized us, my sister still has wounds from my father. He controlled my mother to where she couldn't go outside the house without him. She tried to get him to stop but he would only slap her, god, she was beautiful, she reminded me of Natalie Wood, that's how pretty she was... gone, stabbed at the hands of a man she thought she loved, the first man she really fell in love with and married him young two months after arriving from Russia.

What was truly sad was her murder fell just two days after the murder of Judith Barsi and her mother Maria by the hands of an raging alcoholic man, her father. Josef Barsi was a known drinker and sadly, no one tried to help him. It's heartbreaking how drugs and alcohol can mess up a person, but Mr. Bastard Barsi wasn't under the influence, I'm glad that ******* killed himself.

It is downright sickening that a man that had the $$$ to visit a doctor and get treated for pneumonia, didn't do so.

It is downright sickening that a man that had the $$$ to visit a doctor and get treated for pneumonia, didn't do so.

There has to be more to this story, something doesn't sound right.

There has to be more to this story, something doesn't sound right.
Like what?

Sad to say I'm not surprised, but he had some brushes with the law here in NE Ohio. Not sure if they had anything to do with medication, but it wasn't that long ago, maybe in the past year or two. :(

Sad to say I'm not surprised, but he had some brushes with the law here in NE Ohio. Not sure if they had anything to do with medication, but it wasn't that long ago, maybe in the past year or two. :(
Really? I never knew that. Learn something new everyday. :eek: