A Florida paramedic replaced pain meds with saline. Then, a patient needed morphine
A Suwannee County Fire Rescue paramedic has admitted to stealing pain medications from his truck and replacing them with saline, the Florida Department of Health said.
And James Johnson said he’s been doing so for a year.
That’s in the emergency restriction order (ERO) that came down Wednesday and prohibits Johnson from being a paramedic until the Florida Professional Resource Network says he’s safe for work. Johnson got his paramedic certificate from the state in December 2007. Suwannee County Fire Rescue Chief Eddie Hand said Monday that Johnson, who was dismissed from the department, had been with SCFR for two years.
Beyond his professional status, Johnson also faces charges of controlled substance possession and grand theft.
The ERO says on March 18, another SCFR paramedic was about to inject morphine into a patient in an ambulance when he realized there was something wrong. Someone had tampered with the morphine.
An investigation, SCFR said on March 31, discovered tampering involving “narcotics on a number of ambulances.”
That release came after, earlier that day, Johnson came clean by describing how he took morphine, fentanyl and hydromorphone.
“Mr. Johnson inserted a syringe into the caps of morphine and fentanyl to remove the contents of the vial and replace the contents with saline,” the ERO said. “Mr. Johnson also manipulated pre-packaged vials of hydromorphone to replace the hydromorphone with saline.”
From January to March of thiis year, Johnson told a Suwannee County sheriff’s deputy, he’d done the stealing swap with 41 vials of morphine, 16 vials of hydromorphone and 15 vials of fentanyl. He’d been doing it for a year to satisfy his own addiction.
“The deputies observed several injection mark wounds on Mr. Johnson’s arms indicative of drug use,” the ERO said.
This story was originally published May 26, 2020 at 10:49 AM with the headline "A Florida paramedic replaced pain meds with saline. Then, a patient needed morphine."
