Ex-nurse sentenced to probation for deadly mistake
A former Tennessee nurse whose medication error killed a patient was sentenced to three years of probation Friday. A state judge sentenced RaDonda Vaught, who was found guilty in March of criminally negligent homicide and gross neglect of an impaired adult after she accidentally administered the wrong medication, to supervised probation with judicial diversion, which would allow the charges to be dismissed and expunged after she serves probation. The fact that she faced any criminal penalties at all has become a rallying point for many nurses who were already fed up with poor working conditions exacerbated by the pandemic. Vaught, 38, injected the paralyzing drug vecuronium instead of the sedative Versed into 75-year-old Charlene Murphey on Dec. 26, 2017. Vaught admitted making several errors that led to the fatal injection, but her defense attorney argued that systemic problems at Vanderbilt University Medical Center were at least partly to blame.
