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(deposit photo)
A nurse from Grosse Pointe Park was sentenced in federal court this week to two years in prison for stealing fentanyl, a narcotic painkiller, from Ascension St. John Hospital in Detroit to feed his addiction.
Authorities said Travis Eskridge, 54, either threw out the vials he emptied or refilled them with a useless saline solution and returned them to the proper locked storage system, depriving patients of the pain relief they needed.
“When nurse Eskridge placed tampered vials back into the hospital’s medical supply, he exposed patients in desperate need of pain relief to continued suffering," said U.S. Attorney Jerome Gorgan Jr. in a statement. "This is a reprehensible crime. No medical professional should torture a patient."
Eskridge worked as a registered nurse in the emergency room at Ascension St. John Hospital until August 2022, when authorities discovered the theft. He admitted stealing the drugs from May 2022 until August 2022.
