The Nation - News from April 22, 1985
An 84-year-old man who was mistakenly injected with 10 times the prescribed dose of morphine has died after nine days in a coma in Auburn, N.Y. Carl F. Smith of Weedsport, a patient at Auburn Memorial Hospital, was prescribed three milligrams of the painkiller, but a nurse injected him with 30 milligrams, said Dr. Walter Prokopiw, Smith’s physician. After the April 1 injection, Smith immediately lapsed into a coma, from which he never recovered. “There’s no question” the morphine injection caused Smith to go into a coma, Prokopiw said.
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