Official cause of death for Gene Hackman and his wife released

[thewayne]

The Santa Fe county coroner released the report today revealing what happened, and it's pretty sad.

Both deaths were from natural causes. The first death, his wife, Betty Arakawa, died on February 11 of Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome. Hantavirus is not very common outside of northern New Mexico and Arizona, it's spread by Eastern Deer Mice feces and saliva and can cause an asymptomatic infection. Gene passed away on the 18th from heart disease and advanced Alzheimer's. Reportedly his pacemaker logged his heart stopping. Could be the heart disease, could be Broken Heart Syndrome from his wife dying, or perhaps malnutrition of not feeding himself after she died? The advanced Alzheimers could account for him not calling for help.

No foul play is suspected but the investigation is continuing.

Very tragic.

https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-news/gene-hackman-cause-of-death-revealed-1235281821/

EDIT to add non-paywalled source:
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/gene-hackman-betsy-arakawa-cause-of-death_n_67c9ea6ce4b0404dff30062e

To read Rolling Stone articles and avoid paywalls, open a private browsing window. Normally on PCs this will be a Ctrl-Shift-N. You can also install the Epic browser which focuses on user privacy and does not maintain cookies.

Comments

[devilc]

I fear that he and the poor dog died very awful deaths.

[thewayne]

It was a pretty horrible set of circumstances indeed.

[disneydream06]

A sad ending, but I am so glad that it doesn't seem to be anything foul. :(
Hugs, Jon

[thewayne]

A very bad set of events, but nothing intentionally nefarious.

[garote]

This could have ben the way my father and his wife went. He had advanced dementia, and she had a stroke and fell on the floor between the bed and the window in the spare bedroom. The "good" news at the time was that he wasn't so far gone that he didn't know how to phone the paramedics...

[thewayne]

That is good news, more or less.  I'm glad he was able to summon help.  I was fortunate in that neither of my parents were showing significant cognitive decline/impairment before they passed.  My brother thinks my dad had dementia, if he did it was slight or possibly Sundowners.

[elayna]

The article is paywalled to me… do I want to know how the dog died? Did it starve?

[moxie_man]

Sadly, yes. Article reports dog was in a crate due to having undergone some sort of veterinary procedure. So, it starved stuck in said crate.

[elayna]

Poor doggy. What a horrible ending for three lives.

[thewayne]

The trick with Rolling Stone is to open a private browser session and copy/paste the URL into it.  That usually works.  It appears the dog had just been to the vet for some sort of procedure, undisclosed, and was still in its cage.  Sadly, most likely it starved to death.  I suspect Gene had enough mental capacity to dress himself and putter about the house, but not to call for help or do much else.

[elayna]

It’s all so tragic. I’m so sorry for their kids (I know he has some, not sure about her) and other family and friends, to know that they’ve lost loved ones in such a horrible way. That’s got to be very difficult to process.

[gingeriana]

I also read there is a big chance he did not realize his wife was dead for several days already due to his state

This is so heart-breakingly sad, makes me even think that a criminal death would be actually easier on all of them. I mean, it would have been much faster, at least

[thewayne]

That's my expectation, that his mental state he probably thought she was sleeping.  Very sad.

[pondhopper]

The whole thing is so tragic I can't bear to think about it. Being shot by some ody would have been kinder and quicker in this case.

[thewayne]

Sadly, that's probably so.

[kaishin108]

That is so sad. I remember years ago they closed some camp grounds around June Lake in Calif as the Chipmunks were infected and spreading Hantavirus, but like you say, I think pretty rare in Calif these days. My mom always warned us about mouse droppings but I guess that is pretty rare these days.

Her death might have shocked his whole system. How very sad.

[silveradept]

Ooof. What a tragic sequence of events for them.