re: My next door neighbor is paralyzed from the hips down thanks to Ascension/St Thomas

This happens from time to time. In pharmacy they call it "LASA" which means "looks alike, sounds alike" meaning they are trained not to be fooled by all the various drugs that come in identical looking vials. Some drugs also have similar "sounding" names that can further confuse lower level people like techs. The FDA has told drug companies it is best practice to stop using identical vials for wildly different drugs, but it seems to only be a recommendation, not a law.

There was a similar case to this (also in Nashville) at Vanderbilt in 2017. A nurse was instructed to give a benzo called Versed to a patient before surgery for anxiety. She went to the medical cabinet, got on the computer, and typed in the letters "VE." The computer spit out vecuronium which is what she grabbed and gave the patient. This is a drug that paralyzes every muscle in the body (including lungs) and will kill you without a ventilator (it is only to be used on vented patients). So she gave it to a lady who was in for a minor surgery and it killed her. Without a vent this drug will kill you in under 10 minutes. And they say that you are fully aware and awake as you sit there paralyzed.

Vandy was sued, settled out of court, and made the family sign an NDA. But it went public because someone involved in the investigation leaked the details to the press.

Yes, it's a big problem. They need to redesign these systems from the ground up and build "fail safes" into the system.