Ex-nurse sentenced in drug case

The Daily Inter Lake

A former operating room nurse at Kalispell Regional Medical Center will spend three years on probation for abusing powerful painkilling narcotics stolen from the hospital.

Sharon Louise Morris, 41, was given a three-year deferred sentence last week during a hearing in Flathead County District Court.

Morris pleaded guilty in November to criminal possession of dangerous drugs, a felony. Pursuant to a plea bargain, misdemeanor theft charges were dismissed.

According to court documents, Morris stole 5,250 micrograms of the drug Fentanyl in November and December of 2006. Fentanyl is a synthetic opiate with a potency approximately 80 times that of morphine and 40 times that of oxycodone.

Hospital personnel reported the missing narcotics to the Kalispell Police Department after noticing a box of the medication had been stolen from a doctor.

In interviews with investigators, Morris admitted taking the narcotics over a period of time during her employment with the hospital.

She also admitted to abusing them. When Morris' husband found the box of 10 vials of the narcotics in a closet in the couple's home, he disposed of it at the county dump, according to court papers.