FOX 5 Special: Prescription Mistakes

ATLANTA (AP) - When people get a prescriptions filled at their local pharmacy, they assume they are going to be given the right medication and the right dosage, but that may not always be the case.

Every year an estimated 7,000 Americans die because of prescription errors.

There are a lot of ways a mistake can happen when a pharmacist fills a prescription.

Drug names can look or sound alike or a doctor's handwriting on the script may be hard to read.

Sometimes a person may just pick up the wrong medication.

Glenn Wehunt's family says he's been struggling since the day he started taking a chemotherapy drug. The problem is that Wehunt doesn't have cancer.

Six months ago, Wehunt didn't need any help getting up out of his chair or a walker to get around.

"Daddy was active, he was outgoing, he was busy all the time," said Wehunt's daughter Glenda Harrison.

Harrison said her 81-year-old father hasn't been the same since he took a powerful medication he never should've been given.

"It really messed him up bad. He's almost died at least two or three times during this," said Harrison.

On May 14, Wehunt's doctor prescribed a diuretic to reduce some swelling in his legs.

"He said, 'get that and take one a day, every day,'" recalled Wehunt.

Wehunt's doctor wrote the prescription for metolazone. Wehunt's family said when Wehunt took the prescription to a pharmacy he was given methotrexate, a potent chemotherapy drug, used to treat cancer and diseases like lupus, instead. Patients prescribed methotrexate usually take no more than one pill a week.

"I believe I took one every morning from then on," said Wehunt.

"He had two months worth of chemotherapy drug in eight days and it was rough," said Harrison.

Wehunt's family said 81-year-old's face started to swell and he got weak. Wehunt said he developed open sores on his skin and his hair started to fall out.

"I could take a handful of hair out," Wehunt said.

Wehunt's family rushed him to the ER, where a doctor asked why he was taking a powerful cancer drug when he didn't have cancer.

Every year, the Georgia Drug and Narcotics Agency, which investigates prescription errors, gets about 100 to 150 complaints from people who say they got the wrong medication.

It's estimated at least a 1.5 million Americans are injured every year by medication mistakes, either by getting the wrong drug or the wrong dosage.

Rick Allen, deputy director of the Georgia Drug and Narcotics Agency, says many pharmacists are filling several hundred prescriptions in a shift. "A lot of people burn out, they're filling so many prescriptions a day," he said.

To keep up with demand, Allen said pharmacies are increasingly relying on lesser-trained technicians to help process and fill orders.

Under Georgia law, the pharmacist must check each order.

"We preach to the pharmacists, go out there! It's [going to] take 30 seconds, to go out there, open it up and look at it and say, 'this is what you're taking.' You might catch a mistake," said Allen.

Back in August, Tim Taylor, a retired DeKalb County narcotics officer said he, too, got the wrong medication.

Taylor said he had a tremor in one of his hands, so a neurologist prescribed a seizure drug called primidone.

"I just did what we all would do, went to my local CVS pharmacy and dropped it off," recalled Taylor.

Taylor said when he picked up the prescription the next day at a CVS pharmacy in Covington, instead of primidone, the pharmacist gave him prednisone, a steroid with some troubling side effects.

"My tremor got a hundred percent worse instead of better and my hand was shaking. I got really irritable with everything, because I wasn't sleeping," Taylor said.

After three weeks, a frustrated Taylor called his doctor, who discovered the mistake.

"Then I called the pharmacy. I talked to the pharmacist. He went and pulled the prescription and said, 'oh, my god, we gave you the wrong medication!'" Taylor said.

CVS representatives said the company issued Taylor an apology and corrected the prescription as soon as the incident was brought to its attention.

In a written statement, the company said, "We recognized any process involving people is not immune to the possibility of human error, which is why we remain committed to continually improving quality measures to help ensure our pharmacists fill prescriptions safely and accurately."

Taylor filed a complaint with the state pharmacy board, which is investigating the matter.

"I know we're all human, and mistakes are made. But in the medical profession, you don't expect these kinds of mistakes to happen and you certainly don't expect to have to suffer the side effects, like I went through," said Taylor.

Wehunt's family did not want to name the pharmacy he used, but it was not a CVS pharmacy.

The best way to protect yourself against mistakes is to ask the pharmacist to check your prescription.

The pharmacist should actually look at the pills in the bag and talk to you about it. Pharmacies aren't legally required