Montgomery County police are searching for a man who stole pharmaceutical drugs used to treat cardiac patients from Bethesda’s Suburban Hospital in early July.
Police officials said hospital security told them an unknown man had taken drugs from a cardiac refrigerator on July 5. Hospital spokeswoman Ronna Borenstein said the man took “Lidocaine, adrenaline, Epinephrine, drugs used to start somebody’s heart who is in cardiac arrest.”
Borenstein said the drugs were injectables but not narcotics, and she did not want to speculate about how they could be used outside of a hospital setting.
She added that the drugs could be fatal if used by somebody who didn’t need them.
According to police spokesman Rodney Barnes, hospital personnel had approached a man suspected of the theft and asked him why he was in the area.
“[The suspect] gave an explanation for being in the area,” Barnes said. “Hospital personnel accepted the explanation, and when they went to verify it, it was not accurate and he was gone.”
Barnes said the man and the medicine were not in a secured area at the hospital and that he could not personally recall any previous thefts of
pharmaceuticals from local hospitals.
Anyone with information on the incident is asked to call the 2nd District Investigative Section at 301-657-0112.
