One of the stars of the soap opera General Hospital has died at age 55, the second actress from the show to die in 2022, nine months after another 43-year-old General Hospital star was reported missing and later found dead.
Soap fans shocked as General Hospital star found dead
Beloved actress Sonya Eddy, who is best known for her role as Epiphany Johnson on the ABC soap opera General Hospital, has died at the age of 55.
Eddy joined the long-running hospital drama in 2006, starring in the role of Epiphany Johnson, a frank, no-nonsense head nurse. Eddy played the role for 543 episodes, appearing as recently as this past October, Variety reported. Part of her realism in the role stems from the fact that Eddy was also a licensed vocational nurse in real life.
Eddy also appeared in many major films, most often cast as a nurse, including Patch Adams, Inspector Gadget, Nutty Professor II: The Klumps, Barbershop, Daddy Daycare, Matchstick Men, Coach Carter, Bad News Bears, and many more. She was nominated in 2021 at the 2nd Annual Soap Hub Awards for “Favorite General Hospital Actress.” She was nominated for best supporting actress at the Houston Comedy Film Festival in 2017 for OH BABY.
Cause of Eddy’s death revealed
A close friend of the General Hospital star told TMZ that Sonya Eddy that the actor died after experiencing complications from a non-emergency surgery. Eddy went in for a pre-scheduled procedure on December 9 and was released on December 11. However, she began to feel ill and returned to the hospital on December 15. She had developed an infection that became uncontainable, Page Six reported. The next day, she was placed on life support and died later that night.
Another General Hospital star went missing and found dead in 2022
On February 13, 2022, 43-year-old General Hospital actress Lindsey Pearlman was reported missing from the 1600 block of North Mariposa Avenue in East Hollywood, when she was last seen around noon. Her body was discovered five days later, on February 18, several miles from where she was last seen. The cause of death was not immediately known, ABC reported at the time.
However, in mid-August 2022, the Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office revealed the manner of Pearlman’s death was a suicide, Deadline reported. The coroner listed the cause of death as “sodium nitrate toxicity” and listed the status of the case as “closed.”
Additional details of the coroner’s report, obtained by People and NBC News, noted that “non-toxic levels of lorazepam, metoclopramide, and codeine” were also found in Pearlman’s system.
Sodium nitrate is used in many ways, including as a food preservative (especially in meats and poultry), in fertilizers, pyrotechnics and other explosives, and solid rocket propellant, as well as glass and pottery enamels.
