Pharmacist Eric Cropp is part of a growing group of caregivers who’ve been criminally indicted for hospital accidents – very predictable system-driven mistakes. Eric was incarcerated for the death of a little girl, Emily Jerry, who died of a lethal injection of a salt solution during her cancer treatment.
“If I had a chance to make amends and talk with Mrs. Jerry, first thing I would tell her is I’m so deeply sorry that what has happened with Emily. I never intentionally tried to hurt her daughter. I wish I was in her place because I’ll never forget your daughter. She’s in my heart and in my dreams,” Eric stated, through his tears during an interview while he was incarcerated in Cleveland, Ohio. “I’m really sorry and I hope you can someday forgive me. Thanks.”
Patient safety expert, Lucian Leape commented, “well, I think the criminalization is, is a terrible thing. In every case, there were obvious explanations for why the mistake happened. And those explanations all have to do with the systems they were working in and the institutions that were responsible for those situations.”
Emily Jerry’s father, Chris Jerry struggles daily with the adverse event and reminisced on his daughter’s short life. “She could light up a room when she walked in,” he said. “Emily could always put a smile on your face. Always. My heart sank because I knew that she had to have just gone through so much pain. It wasn’t like she was overdosed on, on an opiate where she would just go to sleep. It had to be very, very painful for her. And I think that was the toughest thing to deal with, Chuck, was knowing how much pain she was in.”
Even with this horrific outcome, Chris reached out to the convicted pharmacist and offered his forgiveness, knowing the error was not his fault, but a system error compounded by failing technology and predictable human error. They have traveled the country together working as the Emily Jerry Foundation to ensure that these system errors don’t happen to other patients.
