Ms. Gibson pleaded guilty in May, admitting that she tampered with doses of Demerol, a narcotic pain medication, at Plastic Surgery Center in Bellevue, Wash., where she worked.
According to filings in the case, while employed as a nurse at the ASC, Ms. Gibson began by stealing glass vials of Demerol from a locked case at the center and then took the drugs herself. She then completed records indicating the drugs were being administered to patients. As her addiction worsened, Ms. Gibson would allegedly break open and consume the contents of Demerol ampules, refilling those ampules with saline solution and then super-gluing the ampules back together and returning the ampules to the Demerol box. As a result, ampules containing saline solution, secured by super glue, were disguised to appear as genuine Demerol ampules. On multiple occasions during Nov. 2008, anesthesiologists at the clinic administered the tampered ampules to patients recovering from surgery under the belief that they were administering Demerol. When patients complained that their pain was not being relieved, the anesthesiologist switched pain medications and administered fentanyl to relieve the pain, according to the release.
Ms. Gibson had been a Washington State licensed registered nurse since 1995. However, in 2001, she was sanctioned by the Washington State Nursing Commission for removing a patient’s prescription for oxycodone, a Schedule II controlled substance, while working at Olympic Memorial Hospital in Port Angeles, Wash., and attempting to fill that prescription for herself at a local pharmacy. In 2003, Ms. Gibson was hired at the Plastic Surgery Center. She was fired in Nov. 2008, when the drug diversion was discovered.
In requesting a prison sentence, Assistant United States Attorney Patricia Lally wrote to the court, “Drea Gibson’s on-going conduct put many unsuspecting patients at risk. Not only did some patients unnecessarily experience pain during surgical procedures because they were injected with saline instead of the prescribed anesthetic but these same patients were placed at risk of infection from Gibson’s non-sterile handling of the tampered ampules.”
Read the U.S. Attorney’s Office release on Drea Lynne Gibson.
