Heart attack victims receiving treatment from Camas paramedics have not received injections of tap water instead of a potent pain reliever because of product tampering, Camas Fire Chief Leo Leon said Saturday.
“No one was ever injured or given water,” Leon said after a story in Saturday’s Columbian newspaper incorrectly suggested that cardiac patients may have received injections of tap water rather than fentanyl citrate because of tampering by a paramedic captain who was taking the drug for his own use.
Each injectable vial of fentanyl — a drug used mainly to relieve chest pains during heart attacks — is protected by a tamper-evident seal, Leon said.
“Our medics check those drugs every morning,” Leon said. “If that seal is broken, they’ll assume one of two things: that it was tampered with, or that someone had used part of the fentanyl and left it back in the case.”
In either instance, Leon said, the vial is replaced with a fresh unit and an inspection launched into why and by whom the seal had been broken.
It was the discovery of a broken product seal during a routine inspection last May that led to the arrest of Bradley Curtis Allen, 60, a 22-year veteran of the department. Allen, 60, was sentenced Friday in federal court to more than two years in prison for product tampering.
Allen, who was also fired for stealing medication, had been responsible for ordering medication carried on the fire department’s rescue units.
Up until last May, Leon said, Allen would acquire extra boxes of fentanyl for his personal use. Leon said Allen had abused the drug off and on for the past three years and changed his tactics after supplies of the drug ran short.
“Everybody was running low,” Leon said. “Since his need was so high and he was going so far into his stash, instead of leaving the things on the ambulance alone, he had to go into the ambulance and deal with those drugs.”
Leon said Allen took fentanyl out of the department’s reserve ambulance and replaced the drug with tap water. “He felt that he could get a supply back and remove the tampered ones before anybody noticed,” Leon said.
Allen was mistaken.
“We check every ambulance,” Leon said. “We check them every day.”
Leon said the department reviewed every case in which fentanyl had been administered in the six months prior to Allen’s arrest and found no evidence that a tampered vial might somehow been missed during the daily inspection and been given to a patient.
According to Leon, the protocol for the use of fentanyl is to administer a single dose of the drug and check after a few minutes to determine if it was relieving the patient’s pain. If one does doesn’t work, paramedics would inject a second dose. If it didn’t work again, paramedics would not give a third dose.
“We looked back at all the calls, and we never found a call where we used fentanyl where more than one injection was necessary,” Leon said.
Mark Bowder: 360-735-4512 or mark.bowder@columbian.com.
