A Tennessee nurse is on trial for mistakenly giving out the wrong medication, leading to a patient’s death.
Radonda Vaught, a nurse, was charged with reckless murder in the death of Chalene Murphey, 75. This happened at Vanderbilt University Medical Center Nashville.
Vaught was supposed give her patient mild sedatives, but she instead gave vecuronium to her patient, which is a powerful paralyzing agent and comes with a warning label.
This incident took place four years ago and is currently being prosecuted.
Vaught admitted to an investigative that she was distracted in the audio being played in court.
“My mistake caused a patient, essentially, to die,”Vaught spoke on the tape.
Vaught was not the only victim of the prosecution’s arguments.
“The defendant violated everything that she had ever learned,”Debbie Housel is the assistant district attorney.
It is a different view from the defense. Although the defense acknowledged that the nurse had made a “tragic mistake,”Peter Strainse her attorney claimed she was being made a scapegoat in order to protect the hospital’s image. He said that the hospital had systemic issues that contributed to the mistake she made.
“The English poet Alexander Pope says, ‘To err is human and to forgive is divine.’ Quite frankly, forgiveness has been in very short supply for Radonda Vaught,” Strianse said.
The patient’s family also testified about the tragic mistake.
“As I turned the corner, I saw my mother-in-law with all those people around her,”One family member said it.
Vaught has the support of fellow nurses across the country.
Her coworkers claim that they acknowledged her error right away and that she feels regret over it. Many in the nursing community were shocked to hear of her arrest.
“Nurses make errors. Every day, nurses make errors. If we are going to be tried criminally for making a human error without any ill-intent, why is anyone going to keep going into the nursing profession? We have to be supported,”One nurse stated.
Vaught can spend up to 10 Years in Prison if convicted.
