Nurse swapped in tap water for fentanyl, killing Oregon patient, lawsuit alleges

A nurse at an Oregon hospital allegedly replaced pain medication with nonsterile tap water, introducing bacteria into a patient’s bloodstream that led to his death, a lawsuit filed this week alleges.

The patient, Horace Wilson, was admitted to Asante Rogue Regional Medical Center in Medford with a lacerated spleen and broken ribs after he fell off a ladder in January 2022, the complaint says. As he recovered from multiple operations in the intensive care unit, Wilson’s treatment team noticed “unexplained high fevers, very high white blood cell counts, and a precipitous decline,” the suit says. He died in the hospital on Feb. 25, 2022.

“He was only 65, good health — so he should have been able to recover from this,” said Justin Idiart, the attorney who filed the lawsuit.

Wilson’s treatment team obtained blood cultures during his hospitalization that were positive for Staphylococcus epidermidis, a type of bacteria that is believed to have been introduced by the tap water, the lawsuit adds.

The suit, filed on behalf of Wilson’s estate and his wife, Patti Wilson, names both Asante and Dani Marie Schofield, the nurse who allegedly swapped out the medication, as defendants, accusing them of negligence. Schofield did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Records from the Oregon State Board of Nursing show that she voluntarily agreed in November to a nursing license suspension, pending “completion of an investigation.”

Asante Rogue Regional Medical Center, a 378-bed hospital, also did not respond to multiple requests for comment this week, but told NBC News in a statement in January that it was “distressed to learn of this issue” and had reported it to law enforcement.

The civil lawsuit seeks nearly $11.5 million and