MIAMI—A nurse who beforehand labored at a Florida outpatient surgical middle has been convicted of stealing fentanyl and changing the highly effective ache medicine with saline.
Catherine Shannon Dunton, 54, pleaded responsible Tuesday to tampering with a shopper product in Fort Pierce federal courtroom, based on courtroom data. She faces as much as 10 years in jail at a June 27 listening to.
In keeping with courtroom data, Dunton labored from September 2021 to April 2022 as a circulating nurse at The Surgical procedure Middle at Jensen Seashore, about 45 miles 72 (kilometers) north of West Palm Seashore.
Middle staff performing a listing observed the lacking medicine, and video surveillance was used to determine Dunton as a suspect, officers mentioned.
Starting in February final yr, prosecutors mentioned Dunton took vials of fentanyl and injected it into herself. To keep away from detection, she changed the narcotic painkiller from practically 450 vials with saline answer, after which returned the adulterated vials to the middle to be used throughout outpatient surgical procedures, investigators mentioned.
Prosecutors had organized for a Meals and Drug Administration anesthesiologist to testify that surgical procedure sufferers receiving diluted fentanyl was not secure. Insufficient ache management also can result in an elevated danger of coronary heart assault or stroke in susceptible sufferers, officers mentioned. Additionally, tampering with the vial introduced a danger of contamination, which might result in an infection throughout or after the surgical process.
