Drugs given to patients could have been fatal

Drugs allegedly given to molestation victims by nurse Jason Laurie at Carson-Tahoe Hospital approached fatal doses, a pharmacist testified Friday.

Giving a patient in no pain 10 milligrams of morphine, then 50 milligrams of Demerol 10 minutes later, is close to what Dr. Jack Paige called an "LD50."

"That means it would be a lethal dose for 50 percent of people," said Paige, inspector and investigator for the Nevada State Board of Pharmacy.

Laurie, 29, of Gardnerville, a former Carson-Tahoe Hospital emergency room nurse, is accused of one felony count of sexual assault, four counts of administering a controlled substance to aid in the commission of a crime of violence and seven gross misdemeanor counts of open and gross lewdness.

He is suspected of assaulting seven female emergency room patients between September and February. He has been in custody since his Feb. 14 arrest.

Laurie, dressed in green jail clothes, leaned forward to watch as Chief Deputy District Attorney Anne Langer asked Paige about dosing patients with both Phenegran and Demerol every half hour.

"Would you consider that to be consistent with prudent medical practice?" she asked.

"I've never in 25 years seen a dose like that," he responded.

Friday's hearing, the second in the case, will continue before Justice of the Peace John Tatro with testimony from more victims on May 23 and will determine if there's enough evidence for Laurie to stand trial.

Dianne Bordas, a registered nurse at C-TH, testified she was working Feb. 6 when a patient complained she had been inappropriately touched by a male nurse. Bordas said she immediately reported it to her supervisor.

On Feb. 14, Bordas received another complaint of inappropriate touching by a male nurse wearing white.

"I said, 'Are you sure?' and she was very visibly upset by then," Bordas said.

Bordas said the woman described a man with light-colored hair, wire-rimmed glasses and long white sleeves. She also said she noticed a ring on his hand from the Mormon Church and that she recognized him from church.

Bordas said she reported the incident to the hospital's risk management officer.

A victim testified Friday she was in the hospital for an upper respiratory infection and was sleeping in the unit where Laurie worked.

"While I was in the observational room I was awakened by somebody touching me," she said. "It didn't feel like a doctor's touch and it didn't feel like a nurse's touch --Eit was sensual."

She said she fell asleep and never reported the incident, but it stayed with her.

"I was wondering why this man was touching me in the middle of my stay at the hospital. Wondering if I was so out of it how long had he been doing it and what exactly was he doing."

Laurie's attorney Steven McGuire asked victims if they had sought money damages because of the molestation and if they had contacted an attorney.

Another victim said she awoke to someone touching her breasts.

"I jumped and he jumped back and I said, 'Oh, I just got spooked,'" she said. "'I thought I was dreaming that my boyfriend was touching me.'"

Langer asked why she didn't report the touching.

"Because I was thinking about staying alive," she said. "I was really sick. I thought I was going to die that day."

Also testifying Friday was the mother of a victim who said she didn't believe her daughter's claims, assuming the drugs made her hallucinate.

"But she saw the male nurse on TV and just went hysterical," she said. "That's when I believed her because she wouldn't have responded like that if it wasn't true."

Theresa York, a registered nurse and the clinical coordinator for the Emergency Department Observational Unit where Laurie worked, testified about the hospital's system for distributing drugs.

She discussed a victim who was made "pain free" on 12.5 milligrams of Demerol for 12 hours by daytime nurses and then given 200 milligrams of Demerol in four hours by Laurie at night.