The medical director for Seattle Children's Hospital said Thursday a second infant has died and an adult was given medication erroneously while under the care of the hospital's staff.

The news comes just a week after it was revealed that an 8-month-old girl died recently at the hospital after staff administered an overdose of a drug. The state Health Department is investigating the second infant death.

Complete Statement By Children's Medical Director

Dr. David Fisher said the latest fatality involved a critically ill newborn whose cause of death has not yet been determined, but who was given medication without the consultation of a licensed prescriber while in an ambulance headed to the hospital Sept. 17.

Fisher said a hospital staff member administered a drug usually used on newborns with unstable breathing. But he said the staffer did so without asking a doctor first.

Fisher stressed that the medicine may have had nothing to do with the newborn's death.

Moreover, Fisher said that on Sept. 25, an adult arrived at the hospital in life-threatening respiratory distress. The adult was given the correct medicine and dose, but the drug was wrongly administered, he said. That person has recovered.

Hospital staff administered the medicine via IV, rather than intramuscular injection, Fisher said.

Fisher says the hospital has reevaluated its entire medication delivery system.

"We take responsibility for any weaknesses in our system -- full responsibility," Fisher said in a late evening news conference Thursday.

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Last week, it was revealed that an 8-month-old girl in the hospital's Intensive Care unit was given 10 times the prescribed amount of calcium chloride. The hospital said a mathematical miscalculation was the cause of the fatal mistake.

The child, Kaia M. Zautner, died of complications from the overdose Sept. 19.

On Thursday, Fisher outlined steps the hospital will take immediately to address safety concerns, including holding mandatory meetings on medical safety policy with 1,000 hospital staffers; and bringing in a group of experts to review medical ordering, dispensing and administration.

Fisher also said that only pharmacists and anesthesiologists will prepare doses of calcium chloride in non-emergency situations.

The latest deaths occurred even though the hospital promised sweeping changes and safeguards last year after another drug mistake killed a 15-year-old boy. That boy died of narcotic overdose. In 2003, a 12-year-old boy also died following an overdose of codeine after surgery.

The state Department of Health announced Thursday it is investigating the second reported infant death that Fisher discussed.

There are two separate investigations into the death, the agency said. One is being conducted by hospital facility inspectors, who have made it a priority investigation, meaning it moves ahead of other investigations and receives immediate attention.

"We had a Department of Health investigator on site at Children's today looking at their systems and policies and procedures in relationship to what happened to this death," Church said.

The other investigation will be performed by the state Nursing Commission. The death was reported to the state by the hospital.

Church said there also is an open complaint with the Nursing Commission about the separate medical overdose death of a child at Children's, which the hospital CEO disclosed in a letter earlier this week.