Lawsuit alleges death caused by Danville CVS prescription error
A Lincoln County man has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against CVS Pharmacy, alleging a wrong prescription filled at the Danville store led to his son’s death.
Jeff Wardlow, executor of the estate of Jeffrey Lee Wardlow of Stanford, filed the complaint last week in Boyle Circuit Court. It names CVS Pharmacy LLC in Frankfort and unknown employees as defendants.
According to the lawsuit, Jeffrey Wardlow was discharged from Ephraim McDowell Regional Medical Center on July 16 after being treated for a pulmonary embolism. Doctors at the hospital prescribed “a series of medications for him to take during his recuperation,” the complaint states.
The next day, Jeffrey Wardlow went to the CVS store on Second Street in Danville to get the prescriptions filled.
“Rather than deliver to Jeffrey the medications that had been prescribed for him, one or more CVS employees dispensed to him different medications — ones that had been prescribed to another patron of the CVS pharmacy,” the lawsuit maintains.
“Jeffrey did not realized he had been provided the wrong medications and for a period of approximately two days thereafter, took multiple does of the wrong medications.”
On July 19, Jeffrey Wardlow collapsed at the home of a family friend and was rushed by ambulance to Fort Logan Hospital in Stanford and then to Ephraim McDowell in Danville, the lawsuit states.
Jeffrey Wardlow remained hospitalized for the next 10 days before dying “as a result of cardiac arrest brought about by the medication error at CVS pharmacy,” the complaint alleges.
CVS has not yet responded to the allegations in the lawsuit, which was filed by Lexington attorney Stephen Amato.
The complaint seeks an unspecified amount of compensatory and punitive damages for Jeffrey Wardlow’s pain and suffering, death, loss of earning capactity, and medical and funeral expenses.
Filed under: General Problems
I bet their metrics are just awesome!
similar thing happened to me at a CVS my prescription was supposed to be for Norco 10 325 number 34 and pain from a broken ankle and I was given some type of blood pressure medication or something worse when they gave my medication one hour prior to me getting there to somebody else however our last names were very close but they’re not even spelled the same more pronounced however the first two letters of the last name or identical so they gave my medicine to somebody else they gave me blood pressure pills that I don’t need I caught on to it right away because I pulled away and I wanted to take a pain pill obviously for my hurt ankle and when I looked at the bottle I’d look at it and I noticed wait a minute this is not the right medication so I went back in the store after hours of research the gentleman finally came back with my medicine and said the same thing this isn’t my medicine they switched everything out did the count. However the pharmacist knew they made a huge error and to compensate me he paid for the medication to themselves they comped me my 30 some dollar prescription and they also gave me a $100 CVS card for my inconvenience. I’m thinking wow I should be calling corporate and telling them what just happened up there look at my local CVS I have never been to a CVS after that and I never will go they can’t even give the correct medication to people let alone still medication that people are required to have and they refused to fill tylenol with codeine if it was for two tablets. I know somebody who had a broken jaw and they took lortab 5 milligram tablets in their number 15 from the hospital and they said we’re sorry but we’re not allowed to fill this prescription. How can CVS not fill a prescription for a broken jaw for 5 milligram hydrocodone tablets 15 of a mother going to last that person 3 to 4 days to alleviate some cute pain I hate CVS more than any other pharmacy in the world do not go there you’re putting yourself in danger
I fully understand your concern and frustration with this problem. I am a pharmacist at one of the top two chains in the country–I won’t say which one but I’ve worked for both. This type of error happens a lot, it’s happened on my watch and every other pharmacist watch that I know who works in retail pharmacy. The problem stems from where our profession is heading. The amount of hours/help that we are given as pharmacists and the workload that we are expected to do is mind-boggling. There still should be no excuse for anybody getting the wrong medication on a consistent basis across the board of retail pharmacy. I’m not sure who to blame— the corporations that we work for, the medical industry as a whole, or a combination of multiple things. Also, Steve’s article about companies making us feel empowered giving immunizations but really just taking the workload off of nurses was mind opening. This past October and November I could barely keep up with my job as a pharmacist because of all of the injections and health screenings that were demanded of me. I’m fairly sure that my profession as a retail pharmacist will not be around to the capacity of what it has been since my graduation in 2004 and I am currently part of the LLC looking for a different future. Once again sorry that this happened to this young man and as pharmacists if we don’t stand up for our rights the situation is only going to get worse.