1999-2010

Thursday, February 04, 2010

Son says Danny Gans was planning retirement when he "took some medicine and took a nap and never woke up"


In the latest twist on the official story of how Las Vegas Strip headliner Danny Gans died from an overdose of hydromorphone, his son says that "he just took some medicine and took a nap and he never woke up."

Andrew Gans also revealed that his father was planning his retirement when he died mysteriously in his bedroom in the early hours of May 1st.

But it's the latest admission that Danny Gans was on a regimen of prescription painkillers that raises new questions about earlier denials by Gans' friends and colleagues and the shameful, willful avoidance of news coverage by the Las Vegas media.

In the weeks before the coroner ruled he'd died from taking the powerful opiate known as "the drugstore heroin" and commercially as Dilaudid, friends and acquaintances expressed shock that the supposedly clean-loving Christian has taken any drug whatsover.

In the months to follow, as more revelations about Gans' battle with pain from variois injuries and possible use of steroids due to vocal problems, as well as his ownership of a drug supply, the story told out by friends and family has taken on shadings and twists.

Twenty-year-old Andrew and his sister Amy, the two oldest of Gans three children, interview on KNPR radio spoke on Nevada public radio station KNPR to promote the recently published autobiography, the Voices In My Head (click here to read the first and only major national review).

Planning to retire

The first news to break in the interview was when Andrew told interviewer Ian Mylchreest (right) that his father was preparing for retirement, even though he was only weeks into a longterm engagement at Steve Wynn's Encore Hotel & Casino.

"Planning, maybe possibly. He didn't really talked about it too much. My dad had lots of energy, and tons of vocal left when he passed, but he knew it was going to be coming within the next decade or so, so he was just always thinking about what's next, always planning and always seeing how much further he could go in his carer.There was no, there was never any set date of when he wanted to retire, it was just up to him. And God."

Speaking via telephone from the family's new home in Los Angeles, Andrew said he and his family were not aware that Danny Gans had heart problems (coroner Mike Murphy stated that Gans had hypertensive cardiovascular disease, a condition that causes increased blood pressure and makes the heart work overtime, as well as polycythemia, a condition that caused his red blood cell count to go up- the opposite of anemia).

"No. We knew that he had high blood pressure and some issues with his shoulders and his back where he had a lot of pain cause he had to have surgery. Um, he had a little heart issue but it was never something that he complained about or talked about to much. He wanted to keep-- because it was always something he could handle and he could take care of."

Andrew spoke of the pain his father endured while on stage due to several shoulder surgeries, and claimed he often refained from taking prescribed medicine because the drugs affected his voice.

Mylchreest then asked if he was surprised that prescription drugs played a part in his fathers death.

"That my Dad too painkillers for the pain?"

"Right."

"No. I think that was pretty normal, I had three shoulder surgeries and whenever I was in pain, I took painkillers, just the prescribed amount that the doctor gave me, that's what my Dad did. He'd actually gotten back from playing golf and he had a sore back he just took some medicine and took a nap and he never woke up."

This was at least the third time Gans' children have been trotted out to promote the autobiography or to address the controversial aspects of his death. Gans' wife Julie, who was with him when he died, has not been seen or heard from since the tragedy. She moved the family from the Henderson, Nevada estate to the Los Angeles area shortly afterwards.

Gans' manager Chip Lightman caused a controversy that the Las Vegas news media chose to overlook when he consciously contradicted Julie Gans' statements and the official timeline of Gans death. Henderson Police detectives reiterated there was no evidence of foul play, nor reason to doubt Mrs. Gans' timeline.


The interview features selections from Danny Gans' overlooked album. Click here for more information on Brand New Dream..

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