"Libby's father had the power of the press behind him and that's the only reason it became a huge story. He did not want to face the fact his daughter was not the perfect little girl he thought she was. And that's the truth."
As I understand this story, the cause of death seems to be complications of an interaction between Libby Zion's legally prescribed antidepressant Nardil and the narcotic painkiller Demerol that was given to her at the hospital. I see no mention of the ingestion of any other drugs. If she was asked, I don't know why this young woman did not tell the doctor at the hospital that she was taking Nardil. Maybe she wasn't thinking straight due to her illness and fever, or maybe she was taking more than the prescribed dosage and didn't want to admit it. The thrust of the article seems to be that doctors need to be made more aware of the manifestations of this syndrome. Of course, if they are conscious and cognizant, the patient has to do his part by being honest with the doctor.
If you really want to know what happened, here it is. An older Doc once told me, "We have checks in place in medicine and bad things can't happen without multiple mistakes being made. Even so it happens and when it does it isn't 'One persons fault' but multiple failures." In this case the intern told the nurse over the phone to give the agitated patient more Demerol to calm her down. There are at least two mistakes here. 1) the intern should have known better than to give the oder 2) the nurse should have known better than to give the medicine to the patient. The intern probably should have gone to evaluate the patient. The ER probably should have insisted on a patient that was that ill go to a Unit bed instead of the floor and the ER doc should have known better than to start this mess by giving Demerol for agitation. The upper level resident should have been keeping a closer eye on an intern that was this clueless. The charge nurse should have been keeping a closer eye on a nurse that was his clueless. I could just go on and on here but I think you get the point.
Let's just say that story has been rewritten for history sake. However, Sid Zion did change the hours doctors had to stay on duty, and that was a fantastic thing.
Sid Zion was a broken man after his beloved daughter died.