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| Oregon Jail Death Tied to Medication Mistake |
| By The Oregonian |
| Published: 04/24/2003 |
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A Multnomah County (Ore.) jail inmate who died of a methadone overdose in his cell two weeks ago was the victim of a medication error by county health employees, according to his mother and sources familiar with the case. Nick Baccelleri's mother, Evelyn Baccelleri, said April 16 that her son was given methadone while he was at Inverness jail. She said he did not take methadone, a synthetic opiate that helps control addiction and pain, before he went to jail. Last week, toxicology test results showed that Baccelleri, 48, died of a methadone overdose after fewer than 48 hours behind bars, according to the county medical examiner's office. On the morning of March 31, Baccelleri checked himself in to serve a 30-day sentence for drunken driving. Shortly before 7 a.m. April 2, a nurse walked into Baccelleri's cell at the Inverness jail cell to give him an insulin shot for diabetes and found him dead. Later that day, Multnomah County sheriff's Capt. Linda Yankee said all indications were Baccelleri died of natural causes during the night. 'That's what it looked like at the time,' she said last week. Clifford Nelson, a deputy medical examiner in Multnomah County, said he initially suspected heart disease killed Baccelleri. But that was disproved during an autopsy, he said. Although Baccelleri was a diabetic, Nelson said there were no indications of complications from diabetes, such as flulike symptoms prior to his death and insulin shock. 'There is no question why this guy died,' Nelson said. However, Nelson declined to go into details about the extent of the inmate's medical problems and the amount of methadone in his system, saying such information was confidential. Several health problems Baccelleri suffered from several health problems. The potent painkiller OxyContin was among the medications he took to jail. Evelyn Baccelleri said her son took OxyContin for pain. 'He had so much pain,' he said. 'His pain was terrible.' County health officials refused to discuss the case, but said they are conducting an investigation, reviewing every medical decision that was made for Baccelleri. 'We want to make sure it doesn't happen again,' said Lillian Shirley, the county health director, who oversees the jail clinic. At the same time, she refused to say what happened. Methadone is occasionally used for the relief of severe chronic pain. It also is being used to treat widespread OxyContin addiction around the country, according to medical experts. Evelyn Baccelleri and sources familiar with her son's case said methadone was used as a substitute pain reliever for the Oxycontin, but a health worker prescribed too much. Shirley said it is common for physicians in the jail system to substitute an inmate's prescriptions. The reasons vary, from inmates showing up with medication without a doctor's prescription to not having it in stock at the jail, she said. 'Prescribing any medication is taken quite seriously,' she said. |
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