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When the story broke last March 13, it combined Gothic horror with a sense of modern depravity. According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, a nurse at the city\u2019s Sunrise Hospital who called herself the Angel of Death had killed at least two patients in the intensive care ward by shutting off their life-support units. More shocking still, the paper reported that the nurse, \u201clike an oddsmaker at a bookmaking establishment,\u201d had taken bets from other staff members as to what time certain patients would die.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Stunned by the charges that made lurid headlines across the country, the hospital administrator immediately suspended seven employees under investigation. Three weeks later a Nevada grand jury indicted registered nurse Jani Adams, 32, for allegedly cutting off oxygen to critically ill Vincent Fraser, 52, thereby causing his death. Then, almost as suddenly as the scandal had surfaced, the case against Adams collapsed. District Judge Michael Wendell quashed the indictment for lack of evidence, and the district attorney\u2019s office chose not to appeal. Reinstated, and apparently vindicated, Adams returned to work early this month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Though the case is closed, the recriminations are only beginning. \u201cFor 11 weeks Jani Adams suffered the agony of the damned,\u201d complains hospital director David Brandsness. \u201cScurrilous and unfounded allegations were made in an atmosphere of hysteria and sensationalism.\u201d Dr. J. Daniel Wilkes, the hospital pathologist and a trustee, contends that the Review-Journal and its aggressive editor, Don Digilio, rushed flimsy charges into print prematurely, then leaned on the district attorney to obtain \u201ca political indictment protecting the newspaper.\u201d Both Adams and the hospital are considering filing suit against the paper. \u201cOur investigation shows absolutely no suggestion of wrongdoing on the part of any Sunrise employee,\u201d says Dr. Wilkes. \u201cJani Adams is found not only to be innocent but to be a highly conscientious and competent nurse.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Why then were the bizarre charges brought? Fellow nurses describe Adams as intense and high-strung and say that on duty she is sometimes curt and abrasive. To deal with the stress of attending the dying, she, like many other intensive care nurses, sometimes indulges in gallows humor. At least once, the grand jury was told, she reacted to a patient\u2019s death by remarking offhandedly, \u201cWell, I killed another one tonight.\u201d Most of the nurses didn\u2019t take her seriously. But on the night of patient Fraser\u2019s death, nurse Barbara Farro, who usually worked an earlier shift, became upset that Adams and some other nurses were playing cards and seemed indifferent to Fraser\u2019s failing life signs. Farro later told the police.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Called in for questioning, Adams was stunned. \u201cI\u2019m a Catholic,\u201d she says. \u201cI believe that only God can take a life. We did everything we could to keep Mr. Fraser alive, but he was such a sick man he just died. Then to be charged with murder. I was numb, in a state of shock.\u201d A native of Charlotte, N.C., Adams once taught English at Clemson University before turning to nursing in 1974. She and Bernard Deters, 39, a former hospital technician, share a modest Las Vegas home with two dozen prizewinning Persian cats. Deters was appalled by the grilling Adams was subjected to. \u201cThe cops\u2019 opening line was, \u2018You can either be a witness or a defendant,\u2019 \u201d he claims. \u201cThey were saying things to Jani like, \u2018You can go to the gas chamber.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Incredibly, the grand jury that indicted Adams saw only small portions of Vincent Fraser\u2019s half-foot-thick medical record. If the jurors had been fully informed, they would have learned that he suffered from a peptic ulcer and chronic cirrhosis of the liver, and that five physicians had agreed his condition was terminal. \u201cTo convict for murder, you need a body and a cause of death,\u201d says pathologist Wilkes acidly. \u201cIt never occurred to anybody on the DA\u2019s staff that the death certificate listed the cause as sepsis\u2014massive infection that led to shock.\u201d Assistant DA Ed Kane, who handled the case, admits somewhat lamely that \u201cwe knew we had serious problems with the indictment,\u201d and says he wishes he had sought expert medical opinion before proceeding. Wilkes couldn\u2019t agree more. \u201cIf police, press and prosecutors make decisions like this, what almost happened in Las Vegas would close down every intensive care unit in the country,\u201d he says. \u201cEvery day there would be indictments for murder.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When the story broke last March 13, it combined Gothic horror with a sense of modern depravity. According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, a nurse at the city\u2019s Sunrise Hospital who called herself the Angel of Death had killed at least two patients in the intensive care ward by shutting off their life-support units. More […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":12711,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-international"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.funminews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/Untitled.jpg?fit=284%2C177&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12710"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12710\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12712,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12710\/revisions\/12712"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}