On December 19 or 20, Van Zandt fell down the concrete stairs outside his home, badly injuring his hip.[48][51] After lying outside for an hour, he dragged himself inside and called his ex-wife Jeanene, who sent their friends Royann and Jim Calvin to check on him. He told the couple that he had sustained the injury while getting out of bed, and refused medical treatment.[51] They took him back to their home, and he spent the Christmas week on their couch, unable to get up even to use the bathroom.[51]
Determined to finish the album that he had scheduled to record with Shelley and Two Dollar Guitar, Van Zandt showed up to the Memphis studio being pushed in a wheelchair by road manager Harold Eggers. Shelley canceled the sessions due to the songwriter's erratic behavior and drunkenness. Van Zandt finally agreed to hospitalization, but not before returning to Nashville. By the time he had consented to receive medical care, eight days passed since the injury.[48] On December 31, X-rays revealed that Van Zandt had an impacted left femoral neck fracture in his hip, and several corrective surgeries were performed.[52] Jeanene informed the surgeon that one of Townes' previous rehab doctors had told her detoxing could kill him.[48] The medical staff tried to explain to her that detoxing a "late-term alcoholic" at home would be ill-advised, but he would have a better chance at recovering under hospital supervision.[52] She did not heed these warnings, and instead checked Townes out of the hospital against medical advice.[53] Understanding that he would most likely drink immediately after leaving the hospital, the physicians refused to prescribe him any painkillers.[54]
By the time Van Zandt was checked out of the hospital early the next morning, he had begun to show signs of DTs.[48] Jeanene rushed him to her car, where she gave him a flask of vodka to ward off the withdrawal delirium.[48] She would later report that after getting back to his home in Smyrna, Tennessee, and giving him alcohol, he was "lucid, in a real good mood, calling his friends on the phone."[48] Jim Calvin shared a marijuana joint with him,[53] and he was also given about four Tylenol PM tablets.[54]
While Jeanene was on the phone with Susanna Clark, their son Will noticed that Townes had stopped breathing and "looked dead."[48] He alerted his mother, who attempted to perform CPR, "screaming his name between breaths."[48] Townes Van Zandt died in the early morning hours of January 1, 1997, at the age of 52. His official cause of death was "natural" cardiac arrhythmia.[55] He died forty-four years to the day after Hank Williams, one of his main songwriting influences.[56]
I saw that a couple of years ago on wiki, how very sad.