Tom Petty died of an accidental overdose after taking various painkillers, his family has announced in a statement.

The musician “suffered from many serious ailments…most significantly a fractured hip”, the statement said.

Tom Petty’s family members say they believe he was overusing prescription pain medication when he died in October at the age of 66.

The musician found fame as the lead singer of Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers, with hits like American Girl and Breakdown.

Tom Petty was also a co-founder of the Traveling Wilburys group in the late 1980s, recording albums with Bob Dylan, Roy Orbison, Jeff Lynne and George Harrison.

The singer was found unconscious, not breathing and in full cardiac arrest at his Malibu home on October 2.

Image source Wikimedia

Tom Petty Dies in California Aged 66

Tom Petty was taken to hospital, but could not be revived and died later that evening.

His family met with a medical examiner on January 19 and updated his fans on Facebook.

The statement said: “On the day he died he was informed his hip had graduated to a full on break and it is our feeling that the pain was simply unbearable and was the cause for his over use of medication.

“We knew before the report was shared with us that he was prescribed various pain medications for a multitude of issues including Fentanyl patches and we feel confident that this was, as the coroner found, an unfortunate accident.”

The family added that Tom Petty’s death “may spark a further discussion on the opioid crisis and we feel that is a necessary and healthy discussion”.

The Los Angeles coroner’s office attributed Tom Petty’s death to “multisystem organ failure” due to a “mixed toxicity” of seven medications. They are fentanyl, oxycodone, emazepam, alprazolam, citalopram, acetyl fentanyl, and despropionyl fentanyl.

Years of over-prescription of opioid painkillers in the United States has created a nationwide addiction crisis, with patients turning to heroin and other street drugs when their prescriptions stop.

In 2016, opioid-related overdoses increased by 28%, killing 42,249 people.