A nurse who was fired from a Texas hospital has been arrested and charged in the death of at least one patient.
William George Davis is being held in a Dallas jail on $2 million bond. He was arrested Tuesday evening and charged in the August death of a 47-year-old Christopher Greenaway.
Police say more charges are expected be filed against Davis, according to Yahoo News.
At a news conference on Wednesday, Tyler police chief Jimmy Toler did not disclose how Greenaway died. But previous reports stated Davis “tampered” with Greenaway’s IV tubing.
Christus Mother Frances Hospital in Tyler, Texas fired Davis in February after seven patients were harmed and one patient died.
Following his termination, the hospital contacted the Texas Board of Nursing “with concerns that a nurse may have been involved in causing harm to patients,” Chief Toler said.
“These patients were experiencing unexplained symptoms inconsistent with their treatment and recovery.”
The Texas Board of Nursing temporarily suspended Davis’s nursing license while investigating the hospital’s allegations.
After Davis’s license was suspended — and before he was arrested — Davis created a GoFundMe page to pay for his efforts to reinstate his license. The page raised more than half of his stated $10,000 goal.
Two other patients who were not under Davis’ care are in vegetative states after he entered their hospital rooms and performed “unnecessary and/or inappropriate” actions, according to the state board of nursing.
The board of nursing did not indicate how Davis killed Greenaway on August 4. Greenaway was not under Davis’ care when he died.
The suspension order stated “the patient immediately deteriorated from their stable condition” and died two days later of an embolism and other complications.
The description of “an embolism” is consistent with the nurse injecting a bolus of air into the patient’s IV tubing.
A syringe full of air injected into a vein can be fatal. The air travels to the heart, lungs or brain resulting in a heart attack, respiratory failure or a stroke.
The medical terminology for air inside a vein or artery is “air embolism”. An air embolism explains why the two patients are in vegetative states.
Air embolisms are rare.
