Utah Pharmacy Blamed for Error in Prescription Leading to Woman’s Death

The family of Utah woman, Gloria Dunn, are suing a local pharmacy and the assisted living center where the 75-year-old lived. Bel Aire Assisted Living Facility was named in the lawsuit after it was found that Dunn was administered the wrong medication.

Dunn, prior to the mishap, only had trouble with her kidneys when her health started to rapidly decline. The lawsuit alleges that the wrong medication led to Dunn dying a painful death in August 2018.

Dunn was a resident at the facility for just a few weeks when her health started to rapidly decline. When the doctor examined Dunn, he told her that she needed to go to the emergency room immediately and that she “looked like death.”

Emergency room doctors asked Dunn’s son if his mother had cancer because she was on high dosages of methotrexate, a chemotherapy drug. Dunn was cancer-free. Dunn’s son claims that all of the medical issues that his mother suffered were due to the prescription mishap.

She had been prescribed metolazone, a diuretic, and not methotrexate, the chemotherapy drug. Select Pharmacy in Midvale sent the wrong drug back to the assisted living center, which didn’t catch the error.

The lawsuit states that it took more than a week for doctors to realize the mistake.

Dunn, according to the lawsuit, suffered terribly as a result. She had sores in her mouth, and even communicating with her family was impossible. She died soon after being admitted into the emergency room.

Her family is seeking answers and has filed the lawsuit to determine how their mother died. The family aims to ensure that the same mistake never happens to another family again.

“Preventing this type of tragedy from happening to anyone else is what’s most important to the Dunn family in filing this case,” states the lawsuit.