Nurse Charged with Stealing Meds from St. Cloud Patients

ST. CLOUD  (AP) - A Minnesota nurse is charged with siphoning pain medication from patients' intravenous bags at a hospital and replacing the drugs with saline solution.

The defense attorney for Blake Daniel Zenner confirms his client is the nurse accused of introducing infections into patients at St. Cloud Hospital by siphoning the medication. Defense attorney Paul Engh says Zenner did not cause the infections.

A federal complaint charges Zenner with fraudulently obtaining the painkiller, but does not name the facility from which the drugs were taken. The complaint says the thefts occurred from November 2010 to March 2011.

Hospital officials held a news conference in March 2011 accusing an unnamed nurse of introducing bacterial infections into 23 patients by stealing their IV pain medication.

The patients were successfully treated with antibiotics.

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