Ohio Doctor Charged with 25 Counts of Murder after Patients Overdose on Fentanyl

A doctor in Ohio was charged with killing 25 people over four years by prescribing fatal doses of the potent opioid Fentanyl, to critical-care patients at hospitals in and around Columbus. Dr. William Husel, 43, pleaded not guilty at his initial court appearance, and a magistrate set his bond at $1 million.

Authorities have not described a motive in the case. Dr. Husel was fired from the Mount Carmel Health System in the Columbus, Ohio area on December 2018.

A lawyer for Dr. Husel said that his client had tried to provide comfort to dying people, not to kill them. “I can assure you there was never any attempt to euthanize anyone by Dr. Husel,” the lawyer, Richard Blake, said as his client turned himself into the Columbus police.

Before getting fired, Dr. Husel had worked for the Mount Carmel Health System since 2013. The state medical board later suspended his license to practice.

A pharmacist had alerted hospital authorities that Dr. Husel was prescribing high doses of Fentanyl to patients, in some cases overriding the hospital’s protocols for the drug. Because of this, Mount Carmel began an internal inquiry and found 35 cases handled by Dr. Husel that it deemed suspicious. This was soon followed by a criminal investigation.

Fentanyl is one of the most powerful opioids ever created. In fact, it is about 100 times as powerful as morphine, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Very small doses of this drug can be fatal. Right now there is an opioid epidemic affecting the country and Fentanyl plays a huge role in it.

An average of 130 Americans dies due to opioid overdose every day. And this is why the opioid crisis is considered the worst drug epidemic in the history of the United States.

Abuse of opioid painkillers is a widespread problem with deadly consequences. From 1999 to 2017, almost 218,000 Americans died from causes related to prescription opioids.

Dr. Husel’s case is different because he is not accused of knowingly facilitating opioid abuse by patients. The people he is accused of killing were often critically ill or unconscious and therefore may not have known what he was doing.

“It was all being done surreptitiously,” said Gerald Leeseberg, a Columbus lawyer who represents 17 families who are suing Mount Carmel over the patient deaths.

The Franklin County prosecutor, Ron O’Brien, said investigators focused on cases in which Dr. Husel had administered doses of 500 to 2,000 micrograms of Fentanyl to patients. O’Brien said these doses may have caused or hastened their deaths. These amounts are much larger than what hospitals typically administer to surgical patients.

“I liken it to the burning down of a candle,” said O’Brien. “While there may just be a half an inch of wax left, if I blow that candle out, I’m causing that flame to go out sooner than it would naturally.”

Dr. Lewis S. Nelson of Rutgers New Jersey Medical School agreed that the doses are very high for patients without significant opioid tolerance. Dr. Nelson is an expert on opioid prescriptions. He said that 2,000 micrograms of Fentanyl would “generally prove consequential and most likely lethal” in most patients. Dr. Nelson said that even 500 micrograms could cause such an effect because of Fentanyl’s potency.

Many of the deaths happened on the overnight shift, according to O’Brien. Dr. Husel had an additional certification in anesthesiology. He provided explanations for the high doses of Fentanyl that satisfied the nurses at Mount Carmel, some of whom were new to the job.

Nurses, pharmacists, doctors, and other employees at Mount Carmel were interviewed as witnesses. No one else was expected to face criminal charges in the case. During the investigation, dozens of nurses, pharmacists, and managers were put on administrative leave.

However, some of them could face further action from agencies like the Ohio Board of Nursing.

“It could not have happened without some complicit knowledge among nurses, pharmacists, and supervisors,” said Leeseberg, the lawyer who represents families suing the hospital.

Mount Carmel’s inquiry found that while most of the 25 patients probably would have died in any case, five of them might have lived if given proper treatment. The health system immediately overhauled its medication dispensing system to make sure that this cannot be repeated. “There is nothing more important to Mount Carmel than the safety of our patients and their trust in us,” it said in a statement.

Dr. Husel has a previous criminal record. In 1996, he pleaded guilty to improperly storing a destructive device or pipe bomb at Wheeling Jesuit College in Wheeling, W.Va. He was sentenced to six months in jail and one year of supervised release.

The device was detonated in 1994, although Dr. Husel admitted that he planned to falsely incriminate another person by placing a pipe bomb and other items in the person’s car.

Each of the 25 murder charges against the doctor carries a possible prison sentence of 15 years to life. Click the link to see Long Beach's top rehab placement programs.

If someone in the family is struggling with opioid or alcohol addiction, it is important to seek help. A combination of medical detox and behavioral therapy can go a long way in the fight against drug abuse. But because every individual is affected by addiction differently, a comprehensive program tailored to their specific needs is necessary. Look for a nearby addiction treatment facility today and find out how drug treatment programs work.