Pierce County nurse tearfully denies infecting patients with hepatitis C

TACOMA, Wash. — A nurse under fire, works to set the record straight. KIRO 7 takes you through her statements and how they compare to what investigators say happened at this South Sound hospital so you can weigh the facts.

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Here with a line-by-line comparison of what the nurse, her lawyer, and the Pierce County Health Department are saying.

Nurse Cora Weberg sought to make a compelling case. Her lawyer blames her predicament on the incompetence of local agencies.

But the people at the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department say they asked the feds to help investigate this case, too.

"I want everyone to know that I never intentionally nor unintentionally stuck anyone with a needle with which I'd previously stuck myself," said Weberg.

Thirty-one-year-old Weberg cut a sympathetic figure. She tearfully denied the stunning allegations against her that while a nurse at Good Samaritan Hospital, she was injecting herself, then her patients, with pain medications meant for them. The patients now have hepatitis C.

"Of all the allegations that have been made against me," said Weberg, her voice breaking, "this is the most awful and it is the allegation that I deny the most."

Just Monday, the state Department of Health stripped Weberg of her license, outlining its case against her. Tuesday, her lawyer staunchly defended her.

"I'm angry," Bryan Hershman thundered.

He declared there is no scientific evidence linking Weberg to the infected patients.

"There is no genetic link," he said.

Then he offered a point-by-point rebuttal.

The state contends Weberg confessed to testing positive for hepatitis C "several years ago'' but never followed up.

"That's patently false," he fired back.

The state says Weberg admitted she ''diverted injectable fentanyl and hydromorphone for her personal use.''

"That is false," Hershman said. "The act of diverting drugs is an act of taking drugs from a patient when a patient is in need of those drugs. Not only did that never happen, Cora has made it clear that it never happened, in writing to the Department of Health."

But she did admit to taking what was left of the drugs home.

"And she did in fact take drugs that had already been discarded by her and other nurses and combined them into a vial so that she could kill herself," Hershman said. "Because the depths of her depression were so great as a result of pressures related to this job."

Indeed, he says, Weberg took the drugs on multiple occasions with the aim of ending her life.

"And she didn't have the courage to do it," Hershman said. "And thank God, flushed them."

But the viral hepatitis coordinator at Tacoma Pierce County Health Department said they didn't rely solely on the state. They took the rare step in this case of involving the Centers for Disease Control.

"We do not normally send specimens to CDC for this additional testing," Kim Desmarais. "No, this is because there were concerns. We had concerns about how the transmission occurred."

A concern so great, said Desmarais, "we have sent multiple specimens to CDC. And we will continue to do that as the need arises."

Weberg was jailed and then released without being charged. Everyone involved in this investigation -- Puyallup police, the health department and Good Samaritan Hospital -- says they are continuing their investigation.

Cox Media Group