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.

[disneydream06]

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

[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...

[elayna]

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

[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

[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.

[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.