Federal authorities have arrested and indicted a surgical nurse who admitted to tampering with vials of fentanyl at Boulder Community Hospital in Colorado, the Denver Post reports.
Special agents for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration arrested and indicted Ashton Paul Daigle, 27, last week. The surgical nurse was terminated from the hospital last month, immediately after he confessed to stealing the prescription narcotic and replacing the vials with saline solution.
According to the Post, the indictment alleges that Mr. Daigle had accessed the fentanyl regularly, as often as 25 times a day, via the hospital’s automated medication management system between Sept. 24 and Oct. 24. As many as 350 patients may have been affected by the drug tampering, but hospital officials say the patients would have been protected from experiencing pain during surgery due to the close monitoring of the anesthesia team.
—Irene Tsikitas
