A lawsuit filed in Florida has alleged that a 2-year-old boy passed away after being given a fatal overdose of potassium due to an error in dosage.
The child was hospitalized at the teaching hospital for treatment of a virus and dangerously low potassium levels. As per the complaint, he was transferred for more intensive care, and during treatment, the doctor was said to have prescribed 15 mmol of potassium twice a day instead of 1.5mmol, which is a nearly 10-fold rise resulting from a deleted decimal point.
This dosing error arose in combination with the child already getting other sources of potassium.
The legal case mentioned how, despite the efforts from the hospital’s side, which included issuing a red alert over the extra dose, no action was taken to correct this error.
Shortly after the second dose was given to the patient, the child suffered from a serious cardiac arrest due to high potassium. The filing says that the intubation attempt was delayed and mishandled. The child remained deprived of oxygen for at least 20 minutes.
This resulted in a catastrophic brain injury. He remained on life support for more than two weeks before being taken off and later dying.