It was recently brought to the public’s attention of the discovery of pills in a Price dumpster.
Patrol officers were dispatched to a man rummaging through a dumpster on 100 South in July of this year. Upon arriving at the scene, officers discovered a man in the dumpster who claimed he was looking for pills. Officers then found a variety of pills that had been disposed of in the dumpster.
Officers seized the pills found in the dumpster and took them for safe disposal. After questioning the man found rummaging through the trash, police discovered he is a client of Four Corners Community Behavioral Health. He stated he often looks in the dumpster at Four Corners since he knows they dispose of medications.
The Price City Police Department notified Four Corners of the situation and asked them to justify the pills found in the dumpster.
Karen Dolan, director at Four Corners, stated that this has never happened before. “We have nothing to hide,” said Dolan regarding the situation.
Dolan explained that a new employee was cleaning out a medical closet containing medications, most of which were pharmaceutical samples, anti-depressants and anti-psychotic medications. The medications were supposed to be disposed of at a take back box for the Carbon County Sheriff’s Office. However, the employee did not follow policy.
“I feel very confident that this has not happened before because our employees that have held this position prior have always followed protocol,” Dolan said.
The employee that threw them out was put on leave without pay after the incident and was required to go through extra training to prevent similar incidents from occuring in the future.
Dolan also expressed that it was not 29 pounds of solely pills, but that the garbage bags also contained old magazines and other trash.
After the staff was notified of the situation, they went through the garbage and inventoried all that was found in the dumpster. The pills were then disposed of properly. Client names were included on some of the bottles in the dumpster, but is not believed that any identities were stolen, according to Dolan. Four Corners notified each person, both in person and in a letter of incident, if their name was found on any of the medications. Dolan reported that only a handful of clients names were involved.
According to Dolan, Four Corners does not prescribe narcotics, but they do keep medication in store rooms if a client is in the hospital. “They’re not your typical ‘party’ medications, they are for serious mental illness,” she said.
Dolan also claimed the dumpster diver is regularly rummaging through dumpsters around town, but does not know if he had been in the Four Corners dumpster before.
“Our board is all aware of it and we have worked hard to turn it around and make sure this never happens again,” Dolan said.
Four Corners stated they care about their clients and are sorry for the stress caused by this incident.