NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) – A former Tennessee nurse is guilty of criminally negligent homicide in the death of a patient who was accidentally given the wrong medication, a jury found Friday. She was also found guilty of gross neglect of an impaired adult in a case that has fixed the attention of patient safety advocates and nurses’ organizations around the country.
RaDonda Vaught, 37, injected the paralyzing drug vecuronium into 75-year-old Charlene Murphey instead of the sedative Versed on Dec. 26, 2017. Vaught freely admitted to making several errors with the medication that day, but her defense attorney argued the nurse was not acting outside of the norm and systemic problems at Vanderbilt University Medical Center were at least partly to blame for the error.
The jury found Vaught not guilty of reckless homicide. Criminally neglent homicide was a lesser charge included under the original charge.
As Vaught waited for the verdict on Friday morning, she was continuously approached by local nurses who had come to the courthouse to support her. Vaught was calm after the verdict was read, but several of the nurses who surrounded her in the courthouse hallway were in tears.
Interviewed after the verdict, Vaught said she was relieved to have a resolution after 4 1/2 years and hopes Murphey’s family is relieved as well.