Blake Garrett died on February 8 in Oklahoma at age 33, and a summary report from the Oklahoma Office of the Chief Medical Examiner listed acute fentanyl toxicity as the cause of death. The manner of death was ruled an accident, closing the gap between the family’s account and the official finding.
Tulsa and the medical report
Garrett died at a sober living house in Tulsa, ending a life that had started in Austin, Texas, and moved early into performance work. He began performing at age 8 in local Austin productions, then traveled with Barney’s Colorful World International Tour from 2003 to 2004 before taking on film work.
He was best known for playing Plug in How To Eat Fried Worms. The following year, he shared in a Young Artist Award for Best Young Ensemble in a Feature Film, a reminder that his career briefly carried the kind of momentum many child actors never sustain into adulthood.
Blake Garrett’s mother
Blake Garrett’s mother told TMZ that he went to the emergency room a week prior after experiencing intense pain and was later diagnosed with shingles. She said she feared he may have self-medicated because of pain from the viral infection after three years of sobriety, and she believed his death may have been a tragic accident.
That account adds the missing human timeline around the medical finding: intense pain, a recent diagnosis, and a family trying to explain how a former child performer ended up dead in Tulsa. The official report does not spell out the source of the fentanyl exposure, which leaves the final step in the chain unanswered even as the cause and manner of death are now on the record.
For readers who knew Garrett only as Plug, the practical takeaway is blunt: the death is no longer a rumor or a vague report. It now sits as an official fentanyl toxicity death ruled accidental, with the remaining uncertainty centered on where the drug came from and how it entered his system.
