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Incident

A 7-year-old girl died after being accidentally given the wrong medication, hydromorphone instead of the prescribed morphine, by a pediatric nurse following her tonsillectomy. An investigation found the nurse had given the stronger pain reliever in error. The girl experienced respiratory problems and seizures and later died after being taken off life support. The nurse noticed her mistake during a routine drug inventory and notified her supervisor. The hospital expressed sympathy for the girl's family and said the dosage given was not normally considered lethal, even for a child.

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137 views1 page

Incident

A 7-year-old girl died after being accidentally given the wrong medication, hydromorphone instead of the prescribed morphine, by a pediatric nurse following her tonsillectomy. An investigation found the nurse had given the stronger pain reliever in error. The girl experienced respiratory problems and seizures and later died after being taken off life support. The nurse noticed her mistake during a routine drug inventory and notified her supervisor. The hospital expressed sympathy for the girl's family and said the dosage given was not normally considered lethal, even for a child.

Uploaded by

Nepoy Beltran Entendez
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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It was a dreadfully tragic incident and involved a 7-year-old girl in your city: Tania Abondanzio, the

daughter of Anthony and Deborah Abbondanzia. The girl was admitted to Mercy Hospital last Friday morning.
She was driven to the hospital by her parents. She was operated on later that morning for a tonsillectomy. She
died Saturday morning. Hospital officials investigating the death announced, during a press conference this
morning, that they have now determined the apparent cause of death: that the girl was given the wrong
medication by a pediatric nurse. They did not identify the nurse, saying only that she has been suspended,
pending completion of the investigation. The girls parents were unavailable for comment. Tania was a 2nd grade
student at Washington Elementary School. Her physician, Dr. Priscilla Eisen, prescribed a half milligram of a pain
reliever, morphine sulphate, after surgery. Hospital records show that, somehow, by mistake, the nurse gave
the girl a half milligram of hydromorphone, a stronger pain reliever commonly known as Dilaudid. The victim
was given the drug at 2:30 p.m. Friday afternoon and developed severe respiratory problems at 2:40 p.m. She
also complained of being hot and went into an apparent seizure. An autopsy conducted over the weekend to
determine the cause of her problems showed results, also announced during the press conference today, that
were consistent with the hospitals report, police said. Police are treating the death as accidental. After
developing respiratory problems, the girl was immediately transferred from the medical facilitys pediatrics ward
to the intensive care ward and remained in a coma until Saturday morning, when doctors pronounced her brain
dead. She was then taken off a respirator and died minutes later at 9:40 a.m. Saturday morning. The nurse
involved in the unfortunate incident noticed she had apparently administered the wrong drug during a routine
narcotics inventory when the shifts changed at midnight Friday. She immediately and promptly notified her
supervisor. The two drugs are kept side by side together in a locked cabinet. Hospital officials said a dosage of a
half-milligram of hydromorphone is not normally considered to be lethal, not even for a child. Dr. Irwin
Greenhouse, hospital administrator, said in a statement released to the press today that, "Our sympathy goes
out to the family, and we will stay close to them to provide support." He declined to comment further.
Hydromorphone, a narcotic used to treat pain, is six to seven times more potent than morphine. Children
sometimes are given a half milligram of hydromorphone to control coughing, a druggist you consulted said. The
druggist added that the dosage did not sound outrageous to her, but rather sounded very reasonable, as a
matter of fact. The drug is generally used for pain relief after surgery or as medication before an operation, the
druggist also informed you, asking that she not be identified by name, a request that you agreed to honor.

A lone man robbed a bank in the city. He entered the Security Federal Bank, 814 North Main Street, at
about 2:30 p.m. yesterday. Bank officials said he first went into the bank with the excuse of obtaining
information about a loan, talked to a loan officer and then left. When he returned a few minutes later, he was
brandishing a pistol and demanded money from the banks tellers. Glady Anne Higginbotham, the banks
manager, said he forced two tellers to lie on the floor. He then jumped behind a counter and scooped up the
money from five cash drawers. As the gunman scooped up the money, he also scooped up a small exploding
device disguised to look like a packet of money and stuffed it into his pockets along with the rest of the cash.
The device contains red dye and tear gas and automatically explodes after a specified amount of time. The
length of time before the explosion is determined by each individual bank using the device. The device is
activated when someone walks out of a bank with it. As the gunman left the bank, he ordered four customers
to lie down on the floor. Most of the customers were unaware of the robbery until told to get down on the floor.
Witnesses believe the gunman sped away from the scene in a pickup truck parked behind the building. Police
say they found a red stain in the rear parking lot and surmise that the device exploded just as the robber was
getting into the truck. An eyewitness told police he saw a late-model black pickup truck a few blocks away with
a red cloud coming out the window a few moments after the robbery but was unable to get the license number.
Detective Myron A. Neeley said, "That guy should be covered with red. The money, too. Just look for a red man
with red money. You can’t wash that stuff off. It just has to wear off. It explodes all over the place-in your clothes,
in your hair, on your hands, in your car. Its almost like getting in contact with a skunk." An FBI agent on the scene
added that many banks now use the protective devices in an effort to foil bank robbers and that the stain will
eventually wear off humans but stays on money forever. He estimated that the man will be covered with the
red dye for at least the next two or three days. The man was described as a white man. He is between the ages
of 25 and 30 years of age. He is about 6 feet tall. He weighs about 180 pounds. He has long blond hair. His attire
includes wire-rimmed sunglasses, a gold wedding ring, a blue plaid shirt, blue jeans and brown sandals.

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