A veterinarian in Virginia admitted stealing for his personal use his clinic’s provide of opioid painkillers and protecting his tracks by refilling the vials with different substances.
Patrick Gries, 54, was sentenced Friday to eight months in federal jail on drug costs, stated the U.S. legal professional’s workplace for Virginia’s western district. He pleaded responsible in January.
As the first surgeon at an animal hospital close to Lynchburg, Va., Gries had entry to the power’s provide of Dilaudid, or hydromorphone, used for treating animals’ ache after surgical procedure.
He injected the drug into himself, then topped off the vials with one other substance and returned them to the hospital’s stock, the federal legal professional’s press launch stated.
Most incessantly, he changed the hydromorphone with saline answer or butorphanol, one other opioid-based painkiller.
After the tampering, the focus of hydromorphone within the vials “various wildly,” prosecutors stated of their sentencing memorandum. One vial had lower than 1% of hydromorphone after Gries is accused of refilling it, the doc stated.
Along with rising the chance of animals’ struggling for lack of correct remedy, the tampering raised the potential for an infection from impurities within the injected substance.
Gries had developed an opioid dependency after surgical procedure in 2020; he underwent dependancy therapy after the thefts have been found the next yr, in response to the Virginian-Pilot.
He pleaded responsible to adulteration of a drug held on the market after cargo in interstate commerce and distribution of a managed substance and not using a written prescription.
He's not employed by the animal clinic, the place he had labored for greater than 25 years.