A woman who works at the River Oaks Animal Hospital in Longwood has been charged with stealing morphine, then injecting herself with the powerful drug, Seminole County deputies said.
The owner of River Oaks Animal Hospital told deputies that she caught Katherine Lang injecting herself with diazepam on Aug. 31. The owner said she later learned Lang stole 2 milliliters of the drug from the animal hospital, deputies said. At the time of the incident, the owner said she did not want to press charges against Lang.
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However, the owner said she reviewed surveillance video and she saw Lang steal morphine from the hospital, inject herself, then refill the morphine bottles with water, which would contaminate the morphine, deputies said. The owner later clarified she doesn’t have video of lang injecting the drug, only footage of Lang stealing the morphine.
Lang is accused of contaminating at least six bottles of morphine, deputies said.
The clinic’s owner told Eyewitness New she was able to find the contaminated drugs before they were used on animals.
Lang is been charged with six counts of grand theft of a controlled substance.
The owner of the animal hospital said in a statement to Channel 9's Cuthbert Langley:
“At this time, there is a pending police investigation regarding theft of drugs by a former employee. As the hospital has a zero tolerance policy for theft or drug use, once the problem was discovered, police were notified and an arrest was made with charges pending. To preserve employee confidentiality, we have been advised to not discuss this any further. We can assure you that at no time were any patients at risk.”
Cox Media Group
