One more day: A wrong drug error

In early November, Dean Baggett had his prescription for a common painkiller refilled. Three painful weeks later he was close to death, said his wife, Laura Baggett.

"You are so careful and think you're doing everything right ... and then something so preventable like this happens," said Laura, an emergency medical technician who runs a cardiopulmonary resuscitation training business and coordinates the CPR program for city employees in Fremont, California.

A prescription for painkillers was mistakenly filled with an antibiotic. On the bottle for the painkiller that Baggett was given, the label reads: Carisoprodol: generic for SOMA/white, round tablet/MP 58. But the oblong, white pills inside Baggett's bottle are marked "MP 85." Dean said he noticed the discrepancy immediately.

However, an employee at Haller's Pharmacies in Fremont, which filled the prescription, explained that the numbers were different because the refill was a generic version of Soma, Laura said.

The Haller's manager and Dean's doctor both refused to comment.

Taking the antibiotic for nearly three weeks made Dean's immune system attack itself, nearly wiping out his body's platelets.

"Just touching his arms raised blood blisters, and he would bleed from the mouth and even his cuticles," Laura said. "He was so sick."

The antibiotic contained sulfa, to which Dean is highly allergic. In addition, his wife said he was having withdrawals from Soma, which Drugs.com warns should not be stopped suddenly without first talking to a doctor.

"I just felt like curling up," Dean said. "One more day and I would have probably woken up cold."

By the afternoon of Dec. 1, Dean was rushed to the emergency room in a Fremont, California hospital. He was given multiple blood transfusions, and by the following Monday he was stable enough to return to his home.

A week later, his hands and arms still were swollen and bruised.

Now the reality of mounting medical bills is setting in for the former New United Motor Manufacturing Inc. employee.

"He is still very sick," Laura said. "He has a long recovery ahead."

Advice: Carefully inspect the medication label and pills for possible transposed numbers.

Read one of our wrong drug stories, or read more from the source article in the Oakland Tribune of Dec. 12, 2006 by Angela Woodall.