Lab technician charged with infecting patients with hep C

Nation & World

A nomadic medical technician who moved in and out of hospital jobs from the Southwest to New England has been indicted in New Hampshire by a federal grand jury in connection with a hepatitis C outbreak that infected more than 30 patients at a hospital in that state and exposed thousands of others in Pennsylvania, Maryland and elsewhere.

David Kwiatkowski, a 33year-old former radiology tech, was charged Wednesday with seven counts of tampering with a consumer product and seven counts of obtaining controlled substances by fraud. Infected with the life-threatening virus, he reportedly stole hospital syringes, used them on himself and placed them for use on patients.

In July, he was found in a hotel room in Boxborough, Mass., allegedly with six bottles of medication. He was drunk, disheveled and confused and left a suicide note to a friend, according to police reports.

He was taken to a hospital in Worcester, Mass., and was arraigned in his bed surrounded by FBI agents, lawyers and a federal judge from Boston. His attorney, James Reardon Jr., said “he was quite sick.”

Kwiatkowski faces up to 98 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

A hospital in Pittsburgh has sent letters to 2,000 patients warning he might have infected them, and four hospitals in Maryland are testing 1,700 patients. More than 30 tested positive for hepatitis C at the Exeter Hospital in Exeter, N.H.

Marcie DiFede, an FBI special agent in Portsmouth, N.H., said in a court affidavit that Kwiatkowski was raised in Michigan and in 2007, he began traveling the country as a contract lab technician in six states, in- cluding Arizona, Kansas and Georgia.

At Exeter Hospital, coworkers said hewas“sweating” with “bloodshot eyes” and appeared to be “on something,” DiFede said. His arms had “fresh track marks,” DiFede said.

She said Kwiatkowski injected himself with syringes filled with Fentanyl, an antipain medicine for cancer, which tainted the needles with hepatitis C.