Article here. If I’m reading the numbers right, her BAC was an astounding .41, which I guess is more than enough to be lethal.
The poor woman. What a sad and lonely way to go.
I’m surprised it took so long to determine this. Sounds pretty straightforward, the amount of alcohol measured in her blood was higher than what is considered to be a fatal level.
I suppose some people have survived that level (though not many, I expect), so they couldn’t be absolutely certain without some detailed investigation.
My assumption is that they probably had the BAC results back pretty quickly, it’s the results for everything else that take several weeks to months to get back. They don’t want to come out and say the .41 BAC killed her only to have to have the bloodwork com back two months later showing that she snorted an ounce of cocaine and 3 grams of heroin in the three hours preceding her death (or that it was something unrelated to drugs altogether) and have to do the press conference all over again.
Maybe she could have if she hadn’t been clean for a month before hand. I’m guessing having a near zero tolerance probably didn’t help the situation.
Talk about the benefits of rehab.
Good point.
I think we can firmly lay to rest the myth that Winehouse was killed by alcohol withdrawal.
For a 100-lb woman, that’s 8 drinks in an hour according to this chart. I’m almost shocked at how little alcohol can kill you. (OK, 8 drinks isn’t a “little,” but as a 170-lb male, I know I’ve done that several times. The equivalent dosage would be 14 drinks in one hour for me.)