Miscellaneous Celebrity News

[Broadway]

JustJared has a report allegedly from his family:

A rep for Heath Ledger’s family says Heath’s death was accidental.

The cops told the Ledger family that there is no evidence that he may have committed suicide, reports TMZ.

His family says he was not that kind of person to have taken his own life.

Heath was sick with pneumonia when he died today in NY. His autopsy is scheduled for tomorrow.

Former fiancee Michelle Williams is currently on a plane en route to NYC.

****************
and and celebrity reactions: I had forgotten that it was Australia Week in LA this week.

Celebrity Reactions to Heath Ledger’s Death
Tue, 22 January 2008

Here are the first celebrity reactions of Heath Ledger’s death:

“What a tragedy. My heart goes out to his family.” — Nicole Kidman

“I had such great hope for him. He was just taking off and to lose his life at such a young age is a tragic loss. My thoughts and prayers are with him and his family.” — Mel Gibson

“He is one of my favorite actors. His abilities are rare…it’s a tremendous loss. It’s hard to be here celebrating Australia under these circumstances.” — John Travolta

“The studio is stunned and devastated by this tragic news. The entertainment community has lost an enormous talent. Heath was a brilliant actor and an exceptional person. Our hearts go out to his family and friends.” — Statement by Alan Horn, President and COO of Warner Bros. and Jeff Robinov, President, Warner Bros. Pictures Group

[Google]

 

[prhoshay]

Originally Posted by Krom

There were reports he was still alive and in coronary arrest when the EMTs showed up.

You can't be both. If you are in cardiac arrest, you are not alive. He was pronounced pretty quickly, so he obviously had been down for a good amount of time before EMS got to him.

Here's a link to what I read:

Heath Ledger news about his death - Today's News: Our Take | TVGuide.com

[Krom]

Originally Posted by prhoshay

You can't be both. If you are in cardiac arrest, you are not alive.

Cardiac arrest definition - Medical Dictionary definitions of popular medical terms easily defined on MedTerms says:

Definition of Cardiac arrest

Cardiac arrest: A medical emergency with absent or inadequate contraction of the left ventricle of the heart that immediately causes bodywide circulatory failure. The signs and symptoms include loss of consciousness; rapid shallow breathing progressing to apnea (absence of breathing); profoundly low blood pressure (hypotension) with no pulses that can be felt over major arteries; and no heart sounds.

Cardiac arrest is one of the greatest of all medical emergencies. Within several minutes, there is lack of oxygen (tissue hypoxia), leading to multiple organ injury. Unless cardiac arrest is quickly corrected, it is fatal.

[FireStorm]

It really sounds accidental to me. This is a real bummer. He was so good in Brokeback, and it will be so weird watching him in Batman-I assume they will still release it, yes?

[Nemeses]

Originally Posted by FireStorm

..... and it will be so weird watching him in Batman-I assume they will still release it, yes?

Oh, you bet they will. The cold business machine that is Hollywood knows that the death of one of the stars of it's movie will bring in ticket buyers who might not otherwise have been interested in the movie. The macabre sells well for Hollywood.

[prhoshay]

Yes, I know the definition and have worked with this kind of condition for 28 years, only. It's called d-e-a-d. And they wouldn't have started CPR and then stopped if it wasn't obvious that he had been gone for quite a while.

[Realitychick]

There were interviews with him were he stated he had sleeping issues and had take Ambien several times and it didn't work etc. Sounds to me that he wanted to get some sleep and took too much. My hope is its something like that then a suicide... doesn't seem to fit him. I can't imagine how upset his family and Michelle Williams is for all this speculation of drug overdose and such... it's almost as if people want it to be drugs that killed him so they can blame it on the whole Hollywood drama and that boggles my mind. Let these people grieve in peace without baseless assumptions... Including my own.

[Nemeses]

Originally Posted by AJane

Did he have a history of problems? It seems to me the only time I've seen Heath Ledger (besides in his films) is with Michelle Williams. They always looked like such a nice couple, and perfectly happy.

I don't know anything about him other than what's being reported today. He tends to be in films that aren't anything to interest me, and I've never noted anything about him that made him of interest to me (no disrespect to him, I'm sure he's probably a decent actor, just no one that interested me or acted in any movies that interested me), so all I know is from today's news which has been changing details as often as the commercials change. I'm sure others here know the answer to that, though.

[Critical]

Originally Posted by prhoshay

Yes, I know the definition and have worked with this kind of condition for 28 years, only. It's called d-e-a-d. And they wouldn't have started CPR and then stopped if it wasn't obvious that he had been gone for quite a while.

While people can be resuscitated, cardiac arrest means that your heart has stopped, which means that you are dead.

Reports on TMZ are now saying that he had been dead for some time when his body was discovered. If they did perform CPR, it was likely just standard procedure.

I won't be reading any more of the reports about what happened because, at this point, they're mostly conjecture and rumor. We won't know what really happened for at least several days. It seems a new version of events is being released every five minutes and we really don't know if ANY of it is true.

Whatever caused his death, I'm sure he didn't ever want to leave his daughter. I'd heard some talk about his addiction issues and wondered if that was why he and Michelle split up. Such a tremendous waste of a talented young life.

[gabriel]

Call me cold, callous or whatever, for some reason I don't feel the same sense of loss upon reading of Heath Ledger and Brad Renfro as I do reading about Suzanne Pleshette and Allan Melvin. It is sad, but to me not the same.