The Top 10 Weirdest Pharmacy and Med Error Stories

Ten percent of U.S. deaths overall are now contributed to medical errors. That’s the third highest cause of death in the entire country and an often overlooked form of death that could be prevented.

You can check out these med error stories for yourself and be more aware if you or a loved one are ever, unfortunately, facing a similar situation.

The Top 8 Weirdest Med Error Stories

There’s a lot of things that happen out there in the medical community that we never knew existed. When it comes to med error stories, we can only hope that it doesn’t happen to us.

Unclear Instructions

If you’ve ever done a urine test, you know that they’re not enjoyable. But one woman in 1972 called her pharmacy right before closing time with desperation in her voice.

She had been given a bottle to take a 24-hour urine specimen. “I can’t hold it any longer,” she said. Clearly, she didn’t know that she didn’t have to hold her urine for 24 hours.

The Largest Overdose Ever

A 16-year-old boy named Pablo Garcia stayed in the hospital to get a colonoscopy that would examine intestinal polyps.

Garcia also had NEMO deficiency syndrome, which means that he was more susceptible to infection. The hospital prescribed him Septra for his infections.

However, the computer was set to milligrams and a function that calculated how many miligrams a patient could take according to their weight. 160 milligrams were multiplied into 38.5 pills, which the nurse gave to Garcia instead of questioning the dose. Garcia survived the overdose, but only barely.

Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol was admitted to the hospital in 1987 for gallbladder surgery. 

It was later revealed that he had been receiving twice the amount of fluids that he required. During an autopsy, it was found that his lungs were filled completely with fluid.

Ambien Versus Antibiotics

Riley McDougall was taking antibiotics to treat an average cold. Or so she thought.

She was actually given Ambien by mistake, a popular sleep aid that had been shown to have some effects of sleepwalking on adults.

Given to a child, it can have some seriously damaging effects. McDougall reported seeing terrifying hallucinations, and tried to remove her stair railings, thinking that they were curtains in her house.

She was mistakenly given the pills because they resembled the drug that she was supposed to be taking for her cold. Her mother filed a lawsuit against the pharmacy that issued her the drug.

A Mix Up

In 2016, a 71-year-old female was hospitalized for an acute injury to her kidney and uncontrolled hypertension. She was in and out of the hospital like a normal day and given Norvasc to take to treat her conditions.

The woman reported feeling increased fatigue, slow movement, changes in her personality, and uncontrolled blood pressure.

She also reported anxiety and depression and was hospitalized for chest pain.

It was later revealed that instead of Norvasc, the patient was actually taking Navane. Navene is an antipsychotic that the pharmacy had dispensed by accident. 

Anti-Seizure

In Illinois, a pharmacist accidentally dispensed glipizide to an infant girl. Glipizide is an adult diabetes drug.

The girl was supposed to be taking an anti-seizure drug, phenobarbital. The parents of the girl were awarded 21 million dollars when they went to court to fight against the error.

Blister Breakout

In 2014 in Georgia, a woman broke out in blisters all over her body after she started taking medication for her depression.

For the first two weeks, the medication seemed to be working well. But suddenly, the patient found herself in overwhelming pain. The sweat glands on her skin had actually melted from her body.

The patient was diagnosed with Stevens-Johnson syndrome, a skin disorder that is typically caused by a bad reaction to medication or an improper dosage of medication.

Her sweat glands are essentially gone, and her fingernails will never grow back. She spent five weeks in a medically induced coma while she waited for her skin to peel off entirely. It’s inconclusive so far whether this is completely a med error, or if it was an unfortunate reaction to her medication that could not have been predicted.

Too Many Patches

A patient was at his appointment with his cardiologist for his check-up and told his doctor he was having trouble with his medication.

It was a patch, which directed the patient to put a new patch on every six hours. The man said that he was running out of room on his body to add a new patch.

The doctor had their patient undress and saw that there were more than fifty patches all over his body. The instructions for the patch now let the patient know that they should remove the old patch before putting on a new one.

Messy Handwriting

One woman took her baby to the doctor for an earache. He wrote to put two drops in the baby’s right ear every four hours.

The doctor had abbreviated right ear to “R ear.” When the pharmacist looked at the label, they typed it up just as they saw it. 

The woman complained that the baby’s ear ache was no better, and the baby’s bottom was getting greasy. That’s because the label said, “Put two drops in R ear every four hours.”

Now that you’ve learned what not to do, you might be inspired to become a pharmacy technician. If you want to learn what to do, then click here to read about what it’s like to be a pharmacy tech. Maybe you’re the one that’s going to get it right.

The Wacky and Weird

If you’re interested in med error stories, then you might be interested in more medical stories that are baffling doctors. 

Maybe you’re just interested in the wild and wacky. Or maybe you’re thinking that you’re the one that’s going to finally solve these cases or stop medical errors from happening.

Either way, knowledge is power. The more you know, the more you’ll be able to help. Or, just be really useful to bring along at trivia nights.

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