Probe Widens in Sacramento, Calif. Fire Truck Drug Thefts

Sep. 2 -- The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has been called in to help investigate the theft of morphine from sealed vials on several Sacramento Fire Department engines, the county's emergency medical services director said Friday.

Dr. Steve Tharratt, who oversees emergency medical issues for the county and its fire departments, said the criminal investigation by Sacramento city police and the DEA is in addition to the Fire Department's internal probe into the missing drugs.

"I made my decision based on my assessment of the facts, which points to an apparent diversion (of the morphine)," Tharratt said. "My top priority is patient safety and paramedic safety."

Authorities have not identified any suspects and say they do not know whether the thefts were committed by a paramedic, firefighter or someone else, said Fire Department spokesman Capt. James Doucette.

The department has 325 paramedics licensed by the state to administer morphine to victims, he added. The department aims to have one paramedic aboard each engine or truck, generally in case the truck arrives before an ambulance.

The vial tampering was discovered several months ago during a routine inspection, but not made public by the Fire Department until Thursday night -- after Tharratt ordered all morphine vials removed from fire engines and trucks.

The liquid remaining in the vials with broken seals was sent for laboratory testing.

"Though not all the lab tests are completed, the results we have back show ... the medication in them has been taken out," Doucette said. "Who took it out or why, we don't know."

Authorities were tight-lipped about the investigation, saying only that it involves multiple vials and several engines. They would not say how many stations were involved or what was found inside the unsealed vials.

Tharratt did say that officials have found no instance where a suffering patient was given an injection of something other than morphine.

The order to remove morphine from the fire engines and ladder trucks does not affect city-operated ambulances, where morphine and other painkillers are stored in locked boxes.

On firetrucks and engines, the narcotics were kept inside pouch-sized kits in what Doucette described as a sealed duffel bag of emergency supplies.

In a memo Friday to Sacramento Fire Department paramedics, Tharratt said he has launched a study to draft tighter controls for the powerful painkiller.

Even the possibility that the department has a drug addict in its ranks is frightening, according to Doucette.

"If in fact we do have an employee doing this -- we have an employee who has the disease of addiction," he said. "We want to help that person."

Chief Julius "Joe" Cherry was on vacation and unavailable for comment.

Chief Don Mette of the Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District, a sister fire agency that covers several area counties, said his officials have had no similar thefts, which he attributed to strict internal controls.

The Sacramento Fire Department uses about 550 milligrams of morphine for patients a month, according to Tharratt. The drug is kept in small, 10-milligram vials and administered in doses of 2 to 4 milligrams, he said. It is used to treat people suffering from massive chest pain or heart attacks, severe burns and major trauma from accident injuries.

Tharratt said "it is not uncommon for a paramedic on an engine or truck to not use any morphine for patients for weeks at a time." That's because ambulances usually beat engines and trucks to accident scenes, he said.

Several paramedics have made headlines in California and across the country this year after getting caught stealing morphine. But Jerry Johnston, president-elect of the National Association of Emergency Technicians, a 22,000-member group that includes 10,000 paramedics, said there is no widespread abuse.

"I don't see a huge issue here," Johnston said. "As long as you have a system of checks and balances in place, you shouldn't have any problems."

In April, court documents show a California judge sentenced Richard R. Rolston, a former paramedic chief in Big Bear Lake, about 75 miles east of Riverside, to 16 months in jail after Rolston admitted stealing 358 vials of morphine and replacing the drug with water.

That same month, Jason Greulich, a rookie paramedic in Wake County, North Carolina, was arrested by Raleigh police and charged with stealing morphine from 17 vials in ambulances and replacing it with saline. News reports indicate his case is pending.

In June, a grand jury in Collin County, Texas, chose not to indict Mark R. Hemphill, 28, a former paramedic from the McKinney Fire Department, even after he admitted to tampering with and stealing the contents of 49 morphine vials for personal use.

Copyright (c) 2006, The Sacramento Bee, Calif. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.