Posted on 08/22/2026 11:12:09 AM PDT by CaptainK
A routine knee replacement meant to restore 72-year-old Glenda Dorton's mobility has instead left her facing an uncertain future after her family says the wrong medication was injected before surgery. The Centerville, Tennessee woman arrived at Ascension Saint Thomas Hospital Midtown in Nashville on August 14 expecting a procedure that millions of Americans undergo each year. Her family says the operation itself went well, but what happened before it began changed everything.
According to her daughter-in-law, Kristina Dorton, the medication placed into Glenda's spine for a pre-surgical epidural was not the intended anesthetic. She says it was potassium, a drug that can cause severe harm when administered incorrectly. After waking in recovery, Glenda could not feel or move anything from her chest down.
The hospital has confirmed that four patients were affected during joint replacement procedures that day. Its CEO apologized, while state health inspectors and the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation opened investigations. Ascension says it found a cause and added safeguards, but the hospital has not publicly explained what went wrong.
(Excerpt) Read more at yahoo.com ...
Dear FRiends,
We need your continuing support to keep FR funded. Your donations are our sole source of funding. No sugar daddies, no advertisers, no paid memberships, no commercial sales, no gimmicks, no tax subsidies. No spam, no pop-ups, no ad trackers.
If you enjoy using FR and agree it's a worthwhile endeavor, please consider making a contribution today:
Click here: to donate by Credit Card
Or here: to donate by PayPal
Or by mail to: Free Republic, LLC - PO Box 9771 - Fresno, CA 93794
Thank you very much and God bless you,
Jim
India
DIE was the cause.
We are in the hands of humans when we are in hospitals.
I was once surprised to hear that surgeons make an X on the breast of a woman before surgery because of the wrong breast being removed by past doctors in such cases.
One of my late wife’s doctors operating on her (not for that) was indicted and then went to prison for cases including removing the wrong breast of another woman. Also had been falsifying records in his practice.
Roughly ten years earlier another of her doctors lost his state medical license but escaped prison and was actually allowed to move to Oklahoma and start fresh with a new practice since it was a different state.
I saw this YouTube video on the case. The comments from different medical professionals esp nurses were very interesting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjbsP2GusH0
Was it the same pharmacist that prepared each vial, one wonders?
Ascension says it found a cause and added safeguards, but the hospital has not publicly explained what went wrong.
This is from a comment on a youtube video about the case,
“NO. YOU DO NOT MISTAKE POTASSIUM FOR BUPIVACAINE.”
I don’t know 100% if the above is accurate but it seems plausible.
Fake Indian Diploma mills churn out Indian fake doctors.
Thanks for the link. Horrible. And criminal negligence at the very least.
DO YOUR HOMEWORK before getting ANY type of surgery. Ask questions for as long as you are CONSCIOUS.
Fake diploma mills in south Florida churned out thousands of fake nursing degrees. https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdfl/pr/fraudulent-nursing-diploma-scheme-leads-federal-charges-against-25-defendants
Meanwhile, the hospital chain (Ascension - Roman Catholic) faced hundreds of malpractice suits after they allowed an impaired orthopedic surgeon in Jacksonville to operate for years. Suggesting (given the stonewalling in the Nashville case) that the problem might be systemic.
Concentrated potassium solution, administered intravenously, is used in death penalty and veterinary lethal injections. It is very irtitating to all tissue and lethal to cardiac muscle in that concentration.
Would that be permanent or eventually wear off?
“Allege” and its variations is the recent crutch word that replaced George Will’s “oxymoron” from the 1990s.
Such awful writing. Whatever happened to copy editors?
“””I was once surprised to hear that surgeons make an X on the breast of a woman before surgery because of the wrong breast being removed by past doctors in such cases.”””
They do that on every surgery. My son recently had cataract surgery. The surgeon came into the pre-op room and marked the eye to be worked on. If it’s a bigger surgery they will mark the part and put their initials or name on it.
Hosp CEO name says it all.
My wife was recently in the hospital. A couple of days after she returned home we got a telephone call from-—
ROSE, THE AI CARE MANAGER
Yipes.
Hope the medical staff doesn’t sign documents with an “X in place of signature or mark”. Worked in the days of low literacy (which are now back with us).
The comments from different medical professionals esp nurses were very interesting.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Here is one comment by a ‘patient at St Thomas’ that seems like a smart idea... “I was a patient at St Thomas.. When I first got my meds, I took a photo of them so I could check on what I was being given.. One morning the nurse came in put the meds down for me to take.. I said.. no.. that one is not mine.. She left the room to check and came back with an apology.... So glad I took precautions..”
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.