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Las Vegas headliner Danny Gans, 52, died after he was found unresponsive in bed at his Henderson home before dawn on May 1, 2009, while his wife spent close to three minutes doing chest compressions under a police dispatcher's coaching before officers reached the house, according to records released by Henderson police.

The call came in at 3:40 a.m. Julie Gans told dispatcher Kaulana Flatt she could not wake her husband. Asked whether he was breathing, she said, "I can't ... I can't tell. I can't hear anything," said she was trying to find a pulse, and described the breathing as having "just stopped."

Flatt talked her through CPR. Julie Gans set the phone down for about a minute to get her son to help move Gans off the bed and onto the floor, then counted compressions out loud until police arrived. "Keep going. You're doing a great job," the dispatcher told her.

Officers got there roughly seven minutes after the call. Neither police nor paramedics were able to get Gans breathing again, according to the incident report.

Clark County Coroner Michael Murphy announced the cause of death on June 9, after autopsy and toxicology work. Murphy ruled the death accidental, the result of a toxic reaction to hydromorphone, a prescription painkiller sold as Dilaudid, which Gans had been taking for chronic back pain. The coroner listed chronic pain syndrome, hypertensive cardiovascular disease and polycythemia, a disorder that produces too many red blood cells, as contributing conditions. "This is not an issue of drug abuse," Murphy said.

Henderson police released the 911 recording and the incident report on June 25 and closed the case. Detective Chad Mitchell reported no evidence of foul play. Investigators collected medication from the house and noted nothing unusual about the number of pills.

Gans had headlined on and around the Strip since 1996, working at The Mirage from 2000 until late 2008 before opening a four-night-a-week run at the Encore Theater at Wynn Las Vegas in February 2009.