Fern Franco, 75, died at Hedrick Medical Center in Chillicothe, Missouri on May 18, 2002, while being treated for pneumonia and expected to recover. An autopsy later found she had been given lethal doses of the muscle relaxant succinylcholine and the pain reliever morphine, neither prescribed by her doctors; the combination caused her suffocation.

Franco’s death was one of nine suspicious fatalities at the hospital between December 2001 and May 2002 during the employment of respiratory therapist Jennifer Ann Hall. Hospital staff noted a spike in code blue events and Hall’s frequent presence at many of those emergencies. Hall was placed on administrative leave three days after Franco’s death, and the case eventually went cold, leaving the family without answers for years.

What can readers who remember Hedrick Medical Center in 2001–2002 add about the staff, the spike in emergencies, or Fern Franco’s last days?