A former ICU nurse has been found guilty over the 2017 accidental injection death of a 75-year-old patient in a case that has drawn the close attention of medical professionals.
RaDonda Vaught was convicted of gross neglect of an impaired adult, but on a count of reckless homicide, a Tennessee jury found her guilty of the lesser charge of criminally negligent homicide.
She faces three to six years in prison for neglect and one to two years for negligent homicide, according to sentencing guidelines released by the district attorney’s office in Nashville.
Vaught, 38, of Bethpage, Tennessee, is set to be sentenced 13 May.
She was accused of giving patient Charlene Murphey a fatal dose of the wrong medicine as she waited for a scan at Vanderbilt Medical Center in 2017.
Investigators found that she was supposed to have administered a sedative for the patient’s comfort, but instead she was accused of giving Murphy a different medication that causes paralysis.
Vaught, who said was “distracted” when she overrode a safety feature on the automated medication dispenser, admitted giving the wrong medication, but pleaded not guilty to the charges in 2019.
Prosecutors at trial called her an irresponsible nurse who had ignored her training.
“The immutable fact of this case is that Charlene Murphey is dead because RaDonda Vaught could not bother to pay attention to what she was doing,” Assistant District Attorney Chad Jackson told the jury.
Vaught’s lawyers argued she was being criminally punished for an honest mistake, and was a “scapegoat” for systemic problems with the medication cabinets at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in 2017.
“I am just relieved that this portion of the process is over,” Vaught told reporters after the verdict was returned on Friday.
“I hope that they (Murphey’s family) are also just as relieved to be moving away from this process that has been held up in the legal system for four and a half years. I hope that they are able to find peace with the resolution of this process.”
During the trial, the American Nurses Association issued a statement saying that the prosecution had set “a dangerous precedent.”
“Transparent, just, and timely reporting mechanisms of medical errors without the fear of criminalization preserve safe patient care environments,”the ANA stated.
