Skye McCole Bartusiak, the 21-year-old actress who played Mel Gibson's daughter in the 2000 film "The Patriot," died in July, and now an autopsy is showing that she died of a drug overdose that may have involved huffing a common refrigerant to get high.
"The exact cause of death is an accident due to the combined effects of hydrocodone and difluoroethane with carisoprodol," a source at the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences
told People magazine.
Hydrocodone, often branded as Vicodin, is a pain killer, and carisoprodol is a common muscle relaxant. According to the National Institutes of Health, difluroethane — the final ingredient in the lethal drug cocktail — is an inhalant found in household products that can be used to get high.
Bartusiak's mother, Helen McCole Bartusiak, said shortly after her daughter's death that she has suffered from epileptic seizures her whole life. It's possible the actress was trying to use the drugs, at least some of them, to treat her condition.
Skye's acting career began the year before her appearance in "The Patriot" when she landed a role in "The Cider House Rules." She was six years old at the time. She also played Michael Douglas' daughter in 2001's "Don’t Say a Word" and had a role on "24" in 2002.
Her mother reported that before her death, Skye was preparing to produce and direct her first film.
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