Nurse Suspended After Patient's Death

Investigators believe Deanna R. Brakus, a registered nurse in the state since September 1980, threaded a tube through a patient's nasal passages and into a lung rather than into the stomach, according to the Nursing Care Quality Assurance Commission.

The patient, Delores Stewart, was admitted to Providence Everett Medical Center for stomach aches, said her husband, Harry Stewart, in an interview with KIRO 7 Eyewitness News.

She died of respiratory distress at the hospital the next day, Jan. 14, 2002.

Brakus, also accused of shortcomings at Virginia Mason Medical Center in Seattle, left the Everett hospital in February 2002 after being given a choice of resignation or dismissal, risk management director Paula Bradlee said.

Brakus is now barred from working as a nurse but has a right to a hearing on the suspension, which took effect Monday, said Terry West, a state Health Department administrator.

The patient's family did not file a lawsuit but accepted payment from the hospital of an amount Bradlee would not disclose Tuesday.

The hospital has since reviewed procedures for identifying and preventing errors in treatment "to decrease risk and increase patient safety," she said.

The intubation foulup occurred during tests to determine why the patient had a high fever. West said the tube was intended to be used to deliver a substance so the stomach would show up better on an X-ray.

Nurses are supposed to follow procedures for making sure the tube is placed correctly, Bradlee said.

Brakus also is accused by the state panel of putting a patient in soft restraints without consulting a doctor, failure to write down that she had administered medication and failure to follow doctor's orders in administering a drug at Virginia Mason.

Additionally, she is accused of falsifying the expiration date on her Advanced Cardiovascular Life Support Program certification card, which was required for her job but was a year out of date.

Brakus worked at Virginia Mason 1974 to September 2002. At the time of the patient's death, she was working in the critical care units at both the Seattle and Everett hospitals.