Kimberly Hiatt, the nurse who killed herself after overdosing a baby

Many times, medical caregivers undergo the biggest turmoil of their life due to one, tiny mistake. Such is the story of Kimberly Hiatt, who killed herself after she had overdosed a baby. She was a longtime critical care nurse at Seattle Children’s Hospital.

After spending seven months in deep remorse after she had accidently overdosed a fragile baby, Kimberly Hiatt committed suicide in April.

The incident took place on 14th September when Hiatt suddenly realized that she’d overdosed a baby with 10 times more than what she was supposed to give.

She rushed to a nearby staff at the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit and told what had just happened. A fellow nurse told the investigators in a statement, “It was in the line of, ‘Oh my God, I have given too much calcium.’”

According to the public investigation records, in Hiatt’s 24 years of career, she had not made a single serious medical mistake apart from this one in which she dispensed 1.4 grams of calcium chloride insead of the correct dose of 140 milligrams.

Kim’s partner and co-parent of their two children, 18-year-old Eli and 16-year-old Sydney, Lyn Hiatt said, “She was devastated, just devastated.”

The mistake, although she had admitted it, got her fired from the hospital and also triggered a state nursing commission investigation.

On 3rd April, Kim committed suicide at the age of 50.

Hiatt’s dismissal and her death raised many eyebrows and brought the term “second victim”, which was coined by Dr. Albert Wu a decade ago, back to memory.

According to Dr. Wu, a medical mistake actually results in twin casualties - one of the patient or the person hurt and the second is the one who has to live with the aftermath of making the mistake.

Whereas ample attention is given to the primary victim, which is how it should be, more often than not the second victim is ignored. Stats say that doctors, nurses and other medical workers who commit errors are often left traumatized.

They experience anxiety, sleeping problems, lack of confidence in their professional abilities, depression which could ultimately drive them to suicide.

It should be noted that it is still not clear whether the child, who was critically ill, actually died of the overdose given by mistake. However, the mistake did exacerbate cardiac dysfunction, according to a statement by cardiologist Dr. Harris P. Baden, who cared for Kaia. State lawyers, however, said the child’s fragile condition and poor prognosis would have made it difficult to prove legally that the overdose caused her death five days later, records show.

Nonetheless, Hiatt was escorted out of the hospital and ultimately dismissed. Hence, as much as efforts to reduce medical errors to a minimum should be carried out, the caregivers must also be considered as a part of the accident, sharing if not equal but paramount grief.