CAMAS -- A Camas Fire District captain has been accused of pilfering a powerful painkiller out of vials stored in ambulance medical kits.
He then injected himself and replaced the clear drug with tap water, according to federal court documents.
Bradley C. Allen, a 22-year veteran, was to be arraigned Friday in federal district court in Tacoma for tampering with a controlled substance, the painkiller fentanyl.
There is no evidence that suggests that ambulance patients received tap water instead of fentanyl, according to Camas interim police captain Rob Skeens.
Fentanyl is a schedule II drug approved by the Food and Drug Administration to relive intense pain. For emergency use, the vials come with a needle already attached.
Federal court documents also accused Allen of forging documents that increased fire district orders for the drug tenfold and arranging to have the difference shipped directly to him.
According to the documents, paramedics for the Camas Fire District noticed during an inventory on May 7 that safety seals on three vials of fentanyl had been broken.
The paramedics reported the broken seals to a supervisor. A check of a second ambulance showed more vials with broken seals. A check of the supply room showed the entire inventory of fentanyl was missing.
Camas fire officials contacted the city's police department, who started interviewing district employees.
Detectives quickly focused on Allen. For 12 years, he had been in charge of ordering supplies for the fire district, and oversaw the supply storage room.
The court documents, prepared by FDA special agent Jim A. Burkhardt, said Allen waived his rights and confessed to removing the fentanyl from the two ambulances and injecting the drug.
"Allen said he then drew tap water from a janitor's sink or utility sink within the fire station and replaced the liquid drugs with tap water," according to documents.
He also said he had been stealing morphine, another powerful painkiller. Allen said he had been doing this for three years.
Camas police took photographs of Allen's arm, which they said showed many signs of bruising and inflammation that suggested many injections by a needle.
Allen told police that he was using as many as five two-milliliter vials of fentanyl per day in the months before his arrest.
He would also complete order forms for four boxes of the drug, get approval from a supervising physician, then add a zero to the order. The extra boxes were shipped directly to him, according to court documents.
