Nurse in Texas Accused of Killing Patients with Bleach Injections

April 08, 2009

Kimberly Clark Saenz, now 35, a nurse at a dialysis center in Lufkin, Texas-located about halfway between Tyler and Beaumont on the east side of the Lone Star State, was arrested on Friday, May 30, 2008 and initially charged with intentionally injecting two patients with bleach at the DaVita Dialysis Center located in that city. 

Two witnesses told police that they had seen Saenz draw bleach into syringes and inject it into the dialysis lines of the patients in question on Monday, April 28, 2008.  Fortunately, both of those patients survived their encounter with the cleaning substance.  Subsequent tests showed the presence of bleach in the syringes and the patients' dialysis tubing. 

Saenz was booked into the Angelina County jail and was charged with two counts of aggravated assault, and bail was initially set at $250,000.  Authorities also closed the dialysis center pending the conclusion of their investigation, and the dialysis center in turn fired Saenz the following day.  The center did not reopen until July 2008.
 
Saenz had been employed at DaVita, a very busy dialysis center, for eight months when a number of patients suddenly and inexplicably began getting sick-with some of them dying-in April 2008.  A number of patients that month were rushed by ambulance from the dialysis center to area hospitals, with many enduring excruciating pain.  Now, a year after the strange and unusual deaths and the numerous emergency calls from the dialysis center, investigators have built a case against Saenz accusing her of deliberately injecting 10 patients with bleach, five of whom died as a result of her unspeakable and atrocious behavior whose lives had hung in the balance anyway due to the illnesses that caused kidney failure for which they thought they were being treated.

"How can someone that sick walk around and appear to be a normal person?" asked a relative of one of the victims. "This many people?  It's blowing my mind.  I mean, we live in Lufkin."

One of the patients who survived was rushed to a local hospital last April when her arm would not stop bleeding.  Saenz had been her nurse during the dialysis treatment, which patients with kidney failure must endure three days a week for several hours each day so that a machine, instead of their kidneys, can cleanse their blood.  The patient also complained of having chest pain, and could not stop vomiting.  Three others, that same day, had also been rushed to a hospital.  All-in-all, there were 34 emergency calls from the dialysis center in April 2008.

Bleach can be found throughout a dialysis center because it is used to clean the tubing and the dialysis equipment between patients.  However, great care must be taken to ensure that the bleach is not injected into a patient following cleaning of the equipment because it can be fatal, even in small amounts.

According to Dr. Kurt Kleinschmidt, section chief of the toxicology unit at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, bleach sets off a reaction that causes red blood cells to rupture, releasing potassium during the process. Too much potassium, of course, can lead to chest pain and cardiac arrest.  Bleach also destroys tissue.  Fortunately, bleach is eliminated from the human body fairly quickly, unless too much gets into the system too quickly.

"I just can't see anyone getting away with this without anyone noticing this was going on," said one victim's relative, who died while hooked up to a dialysis machine while under Saenz's care.

According to DaVita spokesperson Michael Chee, Saenz "is the individual who we terminated immediately upon becoming aware of these isolated, deceptive and horrible actions that have now been formally alleged by the Lufkin Police Department.  We are grateful to the Lufkin Police Department and the state and federal authorities for their work on this case and hope that this individual is prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.  It is unfortunate that until this point this issue could not be publicly discussed, which meant our Lufkin dialysis center caregivers have endured understandable but unfair criticism."

Although Saenz was formally charged this past week with one count of capital murder for killing five of the patients, and with aggravated assault against five other patients, the police still do not have a motive for her actions.

Related Links:
Investigation Discovery: Women Who Kill
Investigation Discovery: Female Criminals Quiz

Photo Credit: Nurse: iStock; Kimberly Saenz: Police File Photo

Please note: Persons appearing in mug shots may not have not been convicted of the charges for which they are accused and are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission from Discovery Communications. All quotes must include a link back.

Comments

[sajoc]

If inhumanity to others is so easy for those without any moral compass, then we need monitoring of all people. The good ones have nothing to fear.

Nothing but the most severe penalty should be met out to these lost souls who take the life of an all ready hurting person!

Personal protection can be accomplished with wireless video cameras.

[Unamused]

Seems a good a place as any to drop in the quote from Ben Franklin about "those who would give up their liberty in exchange for security deserve neither". While video monitoring of patients and hospital staff seems like a logical enough step, setting up some Orwellian system of total surveillance of all people everywhere is madness and the first step toward a police state.

A rather more in-depth series of psychological tests given to anyone who is allowed to be alone with helpless patients, let alone administer shots to them as a regular duty, might be a more reasonable start to preventing more hideous events like this from happening.

[Fuzzy]

What a strange case. Makes me want to go to the hospital for treatment. lol.

[sajoc]

Dear Unamused,

First off, let's put Ben Franklin's comment in the context of his time, since he had no idea of what kind of "sick" world you and I would be living in today!

Then you said, "setting up some Orwellian system of total surveillance of all people everywhere is madness and the first step toward a police state." I don't know where you live, but here, they have cameras at every intersection.

You are living in an "Orwellian system" and didn't even know it I guess.

If it was your wife or husband in that hospital with that psychopath nurse, I bet you're aversion to wireless video cameras would be a bit reversed.

https://www.wireless-videocam.com/ features the latest technology in SleuthGear, covert and wireless video cameras for home/office and business surveillance and security protection.

[Masada]

I have a problem with a person "who witnessed the nurse drawing up bleach into a syringe and injecting it into two separate patients"; there is no medical reason to draw up bleach into a syringe. Why would anyone stand by and become a witness. You can yell for help. You can dial a superior. You can dial 911. Something sounds wrong.
Patients are vulnerable, weak and dependant on caregivers who are responsible to provide them with safe care any infraction should be dealt with criminally as an assault. An investigation should have been conducted when the stats were noted to be out of the normal expectation for a dialysis unit with interviews of all staff and camera's installed to check on performance.

[diane]

Geez. Are they ever going to do anything to this woman? It has been two yrs. Nothing. Maybe nothing is happening because they are unable to prove anything.