An unconscious Florida nurse was found on a toilet at work with a needle in an arm
A Naples advanced practice registered nurse has had her license restricted after what the Florida Department of Health describes as her third incident of shooting herself with drugs at work.
In response to the emergency restriction order (ERO) from the Department of Health, Kimberlee Nottingham put her license in voluntary withdrawal status. Each action prevents Nottingham from practicing in Florida for now.
Nottingham has been in and out of monitoring by the Intervention Project for Nurses (IPN), the Board of Medicine’s impaired practitioner program, over the last 23 years.
Her discipline documentation says Nottingham injected herself with the opioid fentanyl while working at Naples Community Hospital in 1996. After being referred to IPN and some time in treatment, the current ERO says, she was “found injecting narcotics at work” in 1998.
Nottingham completed two five-year monitoring contracts with IPN. The first followed a 2002 urine test that came back positive for fentanyl. The second contract came after not recording what she did with some of the fentanyl she removed for patients in 2009 while working for Lee Memorial Health Systems in Fort Myers.
Completing the second contract allowed IPN to clear Nottingham to return to being a certified registered nurse anesthetist, which was the job she held at Bonita Dental Care in Bonita Springs on May 3, 2019.
According to the ERO, she sedated a patient, then headed into the restroom — for 20 to 30 minutes.
Staff who tried to get into the restroom found the door locked.
“A security guard forced himself inside the locked bathroom and found Ms. Nottingham unresponsive and sitting on a toilet with an elastic tourniquet around her arm. The security guard observed a needle inside Ms. Nottingham’s left arm.”
Staff found a vial of ketamine, used for sedation, nearby. A dental technician recognized the syringe, which was labeled “decadron,” a drug used to treat arthritis, asthma, allergies and kidney problems, among other things.
Nottingham said she didn’t take any drugs from Bonita Dental Center. But when IPN ordered her to see Dr. Michael Strolla for a fitness evaluation, she tested positive for Xanax, the sedative butalbital, codeine and morphine. Strolla’s diagnosed severe opioid use disorder.
Dr. Scott Teitelbaum came to the same conclusion after Nottingham went to him for a second opinion. A PEth test came back positive for alcohol and a urine and hair test came back for the butalbital, codeine and morphine.
Teitelbaum recommended Nottingham enter treatment.
This story was originally published January 28, 2020 at 3:11 PM.
