Co-workers knew of murders at hospital

Gretchen Hoffman

GLENDALE -- Efren Saldivar’s co-workers knew he was killing patients

at Glendale Adventist Medical Center, and the former respiratory

therapist even joked about it at work, according to grand jury testimony

by two hospital workers.

The grand jury transcripts were unsealed Wednesday.

Saldivar was sentenced Wednesday to six consecutive life terms for

killing six patients and 15 years to life for trying to kill a seventh at

Glendale Adventist in 1996 and 1997.

Saldivar injected the patients with the drug Pavulon, which halts

normal breathing.

Transcripts indicate that some of his co-workers knew about the

murders and even gave him some of the drugs he used.

Glendale Adventist officials declined to comment about the testimony,

saying they did not receive the transcripts until late Thursday.

Former Glendale Adventist respiratory therapist Ursula Anderson told

the grand jury she heard from a co-worker in early 1997 that Saldivar was

killing patients.

Once, she testified, workers were called to resuscitate a patient and

Saldivar said “something like, ‘Already they found him,’ or ‘so soon,”’

according to transcripts.

In another incident, she testified that she witnessed Saldivar

injecting something into an intravenous line with a syringe, and that a

few minutes later that patient’s heart stopped.

Anderson didn’t remember if the patient survived but thought she might

have died, according to transcripts.

Saldivar told Anderson he tried to target patients whose heart rhythms

weren’t monitored, saying it was “a waste of his medication” when

patients were revived, she testified.

When a therapist’s patient died, Saldivar would tell co-workers that

therapist had the “magic touch,” Anderson said. She admitted to giving

Saldivar succinylcholine, a paralyzing drug, on at least one occasion.

Al Acosta, another respiratory therapist, testified that when a

patient died, Saldivar would erase his or her name from a board listing

the therapists’ assignments for each shift, according to transcripts. One

time he asked Saldivar what had happened to the patient, and Saldivar

mimed “pushing a syringe” with his fingers, Acosta testified.

Four hospital employees were fired by Glendale Adventist following an

internal probe of Saldivar’s actions. Anderson and Acosta were among

them.

Anderson testified that once the patients’ names were erased, someone

drew a face next to the line with X’s for eyes and “a tongue hanging

out.”

Saldivar admitted to police in an interview that he had erased the

names.