J. Clifford Swanson was 79 when he died at San Gorgonio Pass Hospital in Banning, California, during the early morning hours of April 26, 1981. He had been admitted several days earlier for a back injury and, by April 23, was confused and disoriented after serious complications from diabetes prompted a transfer to the intensive care unit. During the night shift of April 25–26, Swanson received two recorded therapeutic doses of lidocaine for abnormal heart rhythms: 50 milligrams at about 5:00 a.m., then 75 milligrams about an hour later.

Around 6:30 a.m., supervising nurse Antoinette Warburton left for a brief break and returned roughly 15 minutes later to find nurse Robert Rubane Diaz standing at Swanson’s bedside; Diaz walked back toward the nurses’ desk carrying a syringe, and minutes later Swanson began seizing and soon went into cardiac and respiratory arrest. Toxicology and cardiac-rhythm evidence later showed very high lidocaine levels and QRS changes compatible with a massive overdose, while the defense argued Swanson’s severe diabetes, lung congestion and other medical issues could explain the collapse.

Swanson’s death became the twelfth death prosecutors later alleged formed a pattern of deliberate lidocaine poisonings linked to Diaz, who was arrested months later and eventually tried. Does anyone remember Swanson or his care at San Gorgonio Pass Hospital in April 1981, or have information about that night shift?