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Nursing Home’s Medication Error Results in Diabetic Coma and Death

Confidential Settlement

Sammie H. was a 65 year old woman with end-stage renal disease. She lived in a nursing home and required dialysis three times per week. One morning, a nurse at the nursing home noticed that Sammie was hypoglycemic (her blood sugar was too low). The nurse gave Sammie some glucose, which helped raise her blood sugar somewhat. Unfortunately, rather than continuing to keep a close eye on Sammie’s blood sugar level, the nurses simply continued to administer Sammie’s scheduled medications, which included medications that lower blood sugar. They administered these medications even though Sammie’s blood sugar level trended lower and lower. Eventually, they noticed Sammie was unresponsive. They essentially put Sammie into a diabetic coma, from which she never recovered.

The Eisen Law Firm went after not only the nursing home, but also one of Sammie’s physicians, who had prescribed one of the sugar-lowering medications. A medication error was made by the doctor. It turned out that the doctor thought he was prescribing one such drug but really was prescribing a more dangerous medication that started with the same letter. Both are anti-diabetic drugs but the one Sammie got is much more likely to cause a diabetic coma than the other. The case settled for a confidential amount just before trial was scheduled to begin.