When former Olympia Fields cardiologist Dr. R. Lance Wilson injected a dying patient with a large drug dose, he wasn’t sure that his action would achieve the goal of knocking out the patient, Wilson testified Tuesday.
“I was giving it a shot,” Wilson, 43, of Frankfort, said during a hearing of the Illinois Department of Professional Regulation’s medical board in the Loop.
But the injection of potassium chloride, which is commonly used in executing condemned criminals, wound up killing the patient, Henry Taylor, 69, officials said.
Though prosecutors last month decided not to charge Wilson with Taylor’s death, the state is trying to decide whether to revoke Wilson’s medical license or to lift his ongoing suspension and allow him to return to work.
The Cook County medical examiner’s office ruled Taylor’s death on Sept. 30, 1998, a homicide. Deputy Medical Examiner Mitra Kalelkar contended that Taylor was in essence euthanized by Wilson’s injection.
Prosecutors declined to charge him, saying they could not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Taylor’s death was caused by potassium chloride.
On Tuesday, John Goldberg, an attorney for the state board, asked Wilson what he hoped to achieve by giving Taylor the injection. At the time, Taylor was having trouble breathing.
“When we treat a patient and it doesn’t work–especially in an emergency situation–you have to switch to another, alternative treatment,” Wilson testified.
He said that after large doses of morphine failed to ease Taylor’s suffering, he turned to potassium chloride to knock him unconscious and ease his suffering.
“It was the most horrible death I’d ever witnessed,” Wilson said. “It was my duty to get him unconscious.”
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Wilson said death was imminent for Taylor, who had a rare disorder that caused his windpipe to collapse. In the week before his death, Taylor signed a do-not-resuscitate order. He refused to have a breathing tube inserted shortly before his airway was crushed and he began flailing and gasping for air.
Bruce Waller, a cardiovascular pathologist from Indianapolis who testified on Wilson’s behalf, said that although he had never administered such a dosage of the drug or known anyone else to do so, Wilson’s actions were appropriate.
Waller said it was important to consider that Taylor had ruled out a breathing tube and that morphine did not appear to be easing his pain.
Hearing officer Phillip Howe, who presided over Tuesday’s proceedings, will make a recommendation to the board whether to reinstate Wilson’s license or revoke it.
The hearings opened with Wilson’s attorney, Barbara Stackler, moving for dismissal, saying the hearing amounted to nothing more than a “star chamber” and a “kangaroo court.”
Stackler said an attorney from the department had told her that unless Wilson admitted wrongdoing and agreed to serve a 2-year probation and undergo further education, the medical board would rule against him.
In an interview, Goldberg declined to discuss Stackler’s claims.
“I think it’s totally inappropriate to talk about settlement discussions,” he said.
In October, Wilson filed a federal lawsuit against the Cook County medical examiner’s office and the Department of Professional Regulation alleging that they violated his civil rights.
Last week, his attorneys filed a temporary restraining order to stay the state board hearings, but a federal judge on Monday deferred ruling on the request.
U.S. District Judge George Lindberg is to hear a request for a preliminary injunction against the state proceedings on Tuesday. Wilson’s attorneys are asking Lindberg to rule on Wilson’s license status and circumvent the state’s authority.
The state board hearings will resume Wednesday on the ninth floor of the Thompson Center.