Nurse charged with allegedly taking surgical patient’s sedative

Fentanyl must be some kind of drug. A Minneapolis nurse was reportedly so taken with the stuff that she kept most of a surgical patient’s dose for herself, telling him to “man up.”

The Minneapolis Star Tribune begins its account this way: “The patient screamed and writhed in agony during surgery at a Minneapolis hospital. Nurse Sarah May Casareto allegedly told him to go to his “happy place” and to “man up” because she couldn’t give him more medication.

Casareto had already shot herself up with some of the fentanyl she checked out for the patient, according to charges filed Wednesday.”

We don’t know the nurse in question, but we can take a closer look at the drug.

The National Institute on Drug Abuse says this about the narcotic: “Like heroin, morphine, and other opioid drugs, fentanyl works by binding to the body’s opiate receptors, highly concentrated in areas of the brain that control pain and emotions. When opiate drugs bind to these receptors, they can drive up dopamine levels in the brain’s reward areas, producing a state of euphoria and relaxation. Medications called opiate receptor antagonists act by blocking the effects of opiate drugs. Naloxone is one such antagonist. Overdoses of fentanyl should be treated immediately with an opiate antagonist.” Drugs.com says this: “Fentanyl may be habit-forming and should be used only by the person it was prescribed for. Never share fentanyl with another person, especially someone with a history of drug abuse or addiction. Keep the medication in a place where others cannot get to it.”

Kind of hard to do if the “others” are supposed to be administering it.