A Pennsylvania nurse is accused of giving lethal doses of insulin to two patients, the state attorney general said.
Heather Irene Pressdee, 40, of Natrona Heights, allegedly gave patients \”insulin overdoses\” as a registered nurse at Quality Life Services, a skilled nursing facility in Chicora, the Pennsylvania attorney general\’s office said in a statement. press.
A criminal complaint states that she was employed at the facility from May 23, 2022 to November 28, 2022.
One patient died on December 4 and the other on December 25. They were 55 and 83, the office said.
A third patient, a 73-year-old man, received an unhealthy amount of insulin on Aug. 31, 2022, but survived after emergency hospitalization, officials said.
Two of the three patients were not diabetic. Their names have not been released.
Pressdee was arrested at her home Wednesday on charges of murder, attempted murder, aggravated assault, negligence and reckless endangerment charges, according to the state AG.
She was arraigned Wednesday evening and is being held in the Butler County Jail without bail. It is unclear whether she has obtained a lawyer.
Attorney General Michelle Henry She said the nurse was supposed to care for the patients, but \”intentionally and maliciously injected them with insulin to kill them\”.
“The allegations in this case outline the callous abuse of incredibly vulnerable patients by a registered nurse,” Henry said in a statement. \”As the allegations indicate, these were deliberate and intentional acts perpetrated by a carer who had been entrusted with the task of caring for these victims.\”
Quality Life Services did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday.
Authorities have launched an investigation after a relative of the victim alleged in a complaint that the nurse was involved in improperly administering insulin to patients under her care, according to a criminal complaint. All three victims were transported to hospital with low blood sugar immediately after a shift in which Pressdee cared for them, she says.
One of the patients who died was non-verbal, according to the complaint, which identified him as JB. He was taken to hospital in October 2022 and a medical team determined he had extremely low blood sugar, he says. He was treated and sent back to the facility.
On November 20, 2022, JB was hospitalized again with hypoglycemia and died two weeks later. A nurse at the facility told authorities Pressdee allegedly claimed JB was \”better dead,\” the complaint said.
The other victim who died, identified in the complaint as JC, was a hospice patient and roommate of JB. He was taken to the hospital 10 minutes after JB\’s November hospitalization, according to the complaint. JC\’s family decided to move him back to the facility, where he died on Christmas Day, according to the complaint.
The third victim, identified as EA, was found in seizures in her bed shortly after receiving treatment from Pressdee, the complaint said. He was taken to the hospital and transferred to another facility.
Pressdee told investigators EA was in Covid isolation and asked her to \”kill\” him, according to the complaint. She allegedly said she removed the insulin from the medication cart and fed a syringe into his stomach.
\”He stated that he started showing symptoms and that he didn\’t address the symptoms, and the incoming shift sent him to the hospital,\” she says.
When asked about the other two victims, Pressdee allegedly said their quality of life was not good, the complaint said. She is accused of injecting each of them with 60 units of rapid-acting insulin.
The complaint alleges that Pressdee has an alleged pattern of \”being disciplined for abusive behavior towards patients and/or staff\” at several other facilities and either resigned from them or was fired.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
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