Hospital Exposes Woman, 23, to Risk of Getting AIDS : Health: While being treated for back pain, she received an injection with syringe that had been used on HIV-positive patient.

A 23-year-old San Diego woman was exposed to a deadly virus at a hospital here after she was treated with a syringe that had been used on an AIDS patient, medical officials said Wednesday.

The woman, whose name was not released, was notified by doctors at Mercy Hospital 36 hours after being treated for job-related back pain that she had been exposed to the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which causes AIDS, her attorney said.

Representatives of the federal Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta and the state Department of Health Services confirmed that the incident, which happened Sept. 25, is under investigation.

Harvey Levine, the attorney representing the woman and her family, said this is the first case in the United States in which a patient has been exposed to an AIDS-related virus with a syringe used on another person--a claim federal and state officials could not confirm.

Dick Keyser, president of Mercy Hospital, acknowledged that a serious mistake had been made.

Asked why the syringe was not disposed of, he said, “Obviously, that should have happened.”

“The medical risk to this patient is very limited,” Keyser said, because the needle was inserted into a tube, which was attached to the woman’s body, rather than being injected directly through the skin.

Levine said his client may know within three months whether or not she is HIV-positive.

Levine said the woman, whose occupation he refused to disclose, was sent to the hospital with an “insignificant lower-back injury” she suffered at work. A magnetic resonance imaging test showed no damage.

“There was no problem with her disc or cervical spine,” Levine said. “It was very minor. For some reason, the workers’ compensation doctor decided to order a bone scan. That involved a radioisotope dye injection, which would have detected a herniated disc.”

“She received the injection, and 36 hours later, on Sept. 27, she received a call at 1:15 a.m. She was told to report to the hospital immediately, that she ‘might have caught a virus.’ She reports to the hospital and is greeted by the head of the radiology department, a hospital vice president and a physician who specializes in infectious diseases.

“She was then told she had been injected with a syringe used previously on a patient known to be HIV-positive, and that the same syringe, instead of being disposed of by the attending technician, was then used on her. They refused to explain how or why such a mistake occurred.”

Levine and physicians unrelated to the case say it is customary for “any and all” syringes to be disposed of as soon as they are used.

“The standard procedure is that you never use a used syringe on another person,” said Dr. Donald Ramras, deputy director of the San Diego County Health Department.

Keyser refused to name the technician who made the injection but did say the person was no longer employed by the hospital. He refused to say whether the technician had been fired.