The Region - News from July 11, 1985

Former hospital technician Randy Powers, convicted last month of injecting an 11-month-old Van Nuys girl with a near-fatal dose of the heart drug Lidocaine, was sentenced to a maximum term of five years in state prison by Van Nuys Superior Court Commissioner Alan B. Haber. The Encino man was found guilty of assault with a deadly weapon, unlawful practice of medicine and child endangering for administering the massive dose of the drug to Sarah Mathews on Sept. 10, 1984. Powers is still being investigated for possible involvement in a series of deaths of at least 15 patients at two hospitals that employed him in 1983 and 1984, the district attorney’s office said.