A British coroner has ruled that Amy Winehouse‘s death was the unintended result of drinking too much alcohol. An investigation had determined the singer had more than five times the legal driving limit of alcohol in her body at the time of her death.
Winehouse, the Grammy Award-winning retro-soul singer of “Back to Black” and “Rehab,” was 27 when she was found dead in her London apartment on July 23. No cause of death was determined by an initial autopsy, and though she had struggled with addictions to drugs and alcohol throughout her life, her family said over the summer that a toxicology report found no illegal substances in her system.
A ruling delivered Wednesday by a coroner in Britain, Suzanne Greenaway, said the official cause of Winehouse’s death was “death by misadventure,” The Associated Press reported. Reuters reported that an inquest found that the singer had 416 milligrams of alcohol per 100 milliliters of blood when she died; the legal driving limit in Britain is 80 milligrams.
Winehouse’s doctor, Christina Romete, said in court that the singer had resumed drinking in the days before her death after a period of abstinence, Billboard reported. The doctor said she saw Winehouse the night before her death and that she seemed “tipsy but calm.” She added that the singer had been prescribed sedatives to help her cope with the symptoms of alcohol withdrawal, though the coroner said those drugs had played no role in her death.
A police detective, Inspector Les Newman, told the inquest that he had found three empty vodka bottles scattered around the bedroom where Winehouse was found dead by a security guard at about 3 p.m. The guard, Andrew Morris, told the inquest he had looked in on the singer at 10 a.m. and thought she was asleep. He called an ambulance at 3 p.m. when he discovered she had not moved.
Amy Winehouse Died After Drinking Too Much Alcohol, Coroner Says
