The autopsy, provided to The New York Times on Wednesday by a publicist for Irons’s family, lists the primary cause of death as a heart attack related to coronary artery disease. The secondary cause is “acute mixed drug ingestion.”
Irons was found in his hotel room in Texas. In the room, the police discovered prescription bottles for Alprazolam, used to treat anxiety, and Zolpidem, a sleep aid, along with tablets containing methadone, a narcotic used to treat pain and opiate addiction. Toxicology tests showed Irons also had cocaine and methamphetamine in his system.
The autopsy report was prepared by the Tarrant County (Tex.) Medical Examiner’s office and will not be made public until June 20. So for all we know this could be a bunch of BS!
“Our office is still enjoined from releasing any information about this case,” a spokesman for the Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s office said in an e-mail.
The Irons family hired its own medical examiners to review the report — one of whom disputed whether drugs contributed to Irons’s death. Yet it said it would not contest the medical examiner’s findings, and said Irons had long suffered from mood disorders and drug abuse.
“Andy was prescribed Xanax and Zolpidem (Ambien) to treat anxiety and occasional insomnia — a result of a bipolar disorder diagnosed by his family doctor at age 18,” a statement said. “This is when Andy first began experiencing episodes of manic highs and depressive lows. The family believes Andy was in some denial about the severity of his chemical imbalance and tended to blame his mood swings on himself and his own weaknesses, choosing to self-medicate with recreational drugs.
“Members of his family, close friends, and an industry sponsor intervened over the years to help Andy get clean,” the report said, “but the effort to find balance in his life was certainly complicated by his chemical makeup.”
Irons died Nov. 2 while traveling home to Kauai, Hawaii, from Puerto Rico, where he had been scheduled to compete at the Rip Curl Pro Search, an Association of Surfing Professionals competition. But he withdrew because of a fever.
While returning home, he failed to make a connecting flight during a layover in Dallas. Instead he checked into the Grand Hyatt Hotel at the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, where he was discovered by hotel staff when he failed to respond to a wake-up call.
In the months afterward, those close to Irons closed ranks, refusing to discuss the circumstances of his death, fueling rumors.
In December, Irons’s widow, Lyndie, received a six-month injunction from releasing the autopsy report from a Texas judge. On May 20, she received another 30-day injunction.