On July 23rd 2001 my husband & I presented his script for methadone for pain management to the Walgreens pharmacy. It was filled & was verified by their pharmacy manager, Tonya Pearson (formerly Peters. We picked it up @ 8pm. He took the prescription per the bottle directions. The bottle sd to take 4 pills as needed for chronic pain. There was no "do not exceed" warning on the label. I found my husband dead @ 8:15am on July 25th. My husband was buried w/out an autopsy so I had to petition the medical examiner to exhume my husband's body to verify my gut feeling that the prescription was somehow to blame for his death. He was exhumed Oct. 12. The m.E. Amended the death certificate from myocardial infarction to methadone toxicity.
Thru investigation I learned that the doctor had written the script as, "take 4 tablets B.I.D." That means 2 times a day. The pharmacy manager had allowed the pill bottle to be released with the wrong directions, which my husband followed.
We thought nothing of the dosage as the doctor had told us this was a cleaner safer drug with virtually no side effects and this was a relief to us & we were grateful to get him off his old painkiller - oxycontin.
The pharmacy stalled for over a year in producing the script for my review, and then violated the Florida Pharmacy Act by failing to advise the Florida Division of Medical Quality Assurance (the investigative unit of the Florida Boeard of Pharmacy) that they had made an error that resulted in the death of my husband.By their own admission all they did was to file an internal incident report that was sent to their corporate offices in Chicago.
This "pharmacist" still retains her position with Walgreens as a pharmacy manager, although at a different location in Jacksonville, Florida.
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