Children's Hospital Nurse Gives Fatal Dose Of Medicine To Baby

Seattle - Only on Q13 Fox News a medical mistake that cost a family everything. Q13 Fox News has learned a nurse at Seattle Children's Hospital gave a baby ten times the intended dose of a commonly used medication killing that child. It's the second time in a little over a year that a patient at Children's has died of a drug overdose.

Children's Hospital would not speak with Q13 Fox News on camera Monday but instead issued us a letter which the CEO sent to hospital employees last week after this happened. In it he admits a nurse gave the child too much calcium chloride. It doesn't say and Children's Hospital wouldn't tell us why the child was getting the medication in the first place, or how the nurse could have gotten the dose so drastically wrong.

Children's CEO Doctor Tom Hanson says the infant who died was profoundly fragile. He says the hospital is investigating why its usual safety checks didn't prevent the overdose.

It was just last year that another patient at Children's suffered a similar fate. Tammy Jarbo-Blakenship lost her son Michael on day after a routine visit for dental work. The family's lawyer Chris Davis says the drug should have never been given to Michael.

"With respect to Michael who was given an overdose of a drug called Fentanyl pain patch that his dentist had prescribed for the first time in her career," said Davis.

Davis says after Michael's death Children's Hospital promised the Blakenships it would establish new guidelines to prevent accidental overdoses.

"We were assured at the beginning of the lawsuit that they had taken changes, implemented changes to make sure this type of thing wouldn't happen again. I'm absolutely shocked. It's very tragic of course and absolutely unfortunate," said Davis.

The nurse who caused this latest overdose death is on leave while the hospital investigates. The Blankenship's lawyer Chris Davis says he doesn't want to alarm the public, but after dealing with Michael's death he's learned getting to the truth in these types of cases may be difficult.

"The number of deaths and errors you see really hasn't declined in my experience because the hospitals and medical profession goes to great lengths to keep it confidential," said Davis.

The Blankenship Family just settled their lawsuit against Children's as part of the deal; they're not allowed to talk specifically about the settlement. As for changes the letter from the hospital says from now on only Pharmacists and Anesthesiologists can draw up doses of calcium chloride unless there's a life-threatening emergency.

Calcium chloride is used for a lot of different things including metabolism problems and dehydration. In this case we just don't know what the baby was being treated for.