Life expectancy would grow by leaps and bounds if green vegetables smelled as good as bacon. ~Doug Larson
A surgery technician in Colorado who infected three dozen people with hepatitis C and may have exposed thousands more does not expect to be forgiven.
Kristen Diane Parker, 27, told prosecutors that she shipped through a hospital’s drug screening process and began stealing drugs to fuel her addiction to heroin. Parker will be sentenced to 20 years in prison. She pleaded guilty to tampering with a consumer product and obtaining a controlled substance by deceit or subterfuge. She admitted stealing syringes filled with Fentanyl from operating carts at Denver’s Rose Medical Center and Audubon Surgery Center in Colorado Springs.
Parker told prosecutors she injected herself with Fentanyl, then replaced it with saline. She said she meant to put the saline in clean needles but got careless. Prosecutors say her actions exposed almost 6,000 patients to hepatitis C and thirty-six patients were infected.
“I can’t ask for forgiveness,” Parker said in a videotaped interview. “I don’t expect anybody to forgive me for what I’ve done. You know, I’m human. I was a drug addict.”
Hepatitis C is a blood-borne disease that can cause serious liver problems, including cirrhosis or liver cancer. Symptoms can include nausea, diarrhea, fatigue, pain and jaundice.
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