>> the baby is gone, missing, for almost 2 1/2 hours. until a police officer spots the getaway car and pulls the baby snatcher over. >> that's a newborn that you have back there. >> listen as jennifer lies to the officer, telling him the baby in the car is hers. >> you gave birth? today? >> no. yesterday. >> yesterday? >> this cop isn't buying any of it. jennifer latham is arrested, and the baby is returned safely back to mom and dad by ambulance. >> what kind of person would want to steal a baby? >> most people who steal babies actually want that baby for themselves. and hospitals are a great place to get babies. >> since 1983, 130 babies have been abducted from u.s. health care facilities. make sure your eyes or a real nurse's eyes are on your baby at all times in the hospital. because every so often a baby snatcher is eyeing them too. at number 24, fake doctors. >> i don't want to lie to you anymore. all right? i'm not a doctor. i never went to medical school. >> like amy adams' character in "catch me if you can," tammy p, rtite thinks she married a physician. >> every morning i would drop him off at the hospital. >> until her husband, eric, pleads guilty to impersonating one. >> i was told that at the time he was arrested he and a nurse were taking a patient from the emergency room into the intensive care unit. >> the hospital says he escapes notice by wearing scrubs and a real doctor's i.d. badge. >> anyone who fakes being a medical doctor is fundamentally a con artist or a scammer. incredible medical mistakes have been made by these fake physicians. >> this man, arthur copes, also turns out not to be a doctor. >> he advertised extensively on websites, saying that he could straighten out the most crooked of spines. >> serrefina gurling sees the ads. she thinks copes is a doctor who can correct her scoliosis. she wears copes's brace for six months, and her curves get even worse. >> i'm extremely worse. and i'm in an extreme amount of pain. >> the people who will fall for these fake doctors usually are extremely vulnerable. it is that persona, that ability to gain a patient's trust, that respect, that white coat, and that ability to smile and get that person to talk to them and trust them that allows the fraud to continue. >> the federation of state medical boards lists hundreds of impostors who've masqueraded as doctors in america. >> miss mace. >> unless it's leonardo dicaprio examining you, go online and make sure your doctor is a licensed physician in your state. at number 23, treating the wrong patient. carrie higuera is bleeding three months into her pregnancy. she fears she's about to lose her unborn baby to a miscarriage. she's waiting in a hospital room when a nurse comes in and asks if her name is carrie. carrie says yes and follows the nurse to a ct scan room. the nurse tells carrie a doctor wants a scan of her abdomen, and they give her the scan, even though carrie is three months pregnant. >> if you're radiating the abdomen, by definition the baby is going to be in the field of radiation and the baby's going to get radiated. >> that ct scan is a mistake. the hospital has confused carrie with another patient named carrie. >> the scan on the pregnant woman will increase the risk that that child will get leukemia. at that early stage in gestation the fetus is also at risk of getting birth defects. >> fortunately, carrie's son nathan is doing just fine. >> how do they confuse patients? >> it often happens with people who have similar names. so especially for common names. jane smith, there may be two or three jane smiths on a common hospital floor. >> before every procedure in the hospital make sure the staff checks your entire name, your date of birth, and the bar code on your wrist band. at number 22, pharmacy faux pas. marina silva is six weeks pregnant. she picks up a prescription for antibiotics at the pharmacy. she takes the medicine. and then sees the label is wrong. >> i came back and i looked at the bottle, and it wasn't my name. >> the pharmacy has given mareena a prescription meant for another woman who was the same last name and a similar first name. the medicine isn't an antibiotic. it's actually methatrexate, a drug that has the potential to terminate pregnancies. >> you never, ever want to give a drug like that to a pregnant patient. >> this is my first child. so it's really difficult to deal with. maybe we could have deformities. there's a lot that goes with it. >> things get hectic behind the prescription counter. an onslaught of phones ringing, messages, patients coming in. pharmacists pull medications from the shelves. you may pull the wrong drug, the wrong strength. we're dealing with a dangerous situation. we don't want to take the wrong medication. >> at neighborhood pharmacies every year 30 million prescriptions are dispensed improperly. when you're at the pharmacy, open the package and show the medicine to the pharmacist to make sure it's right and make sure your name is on the label. at number 21, botched plastic surgery. marilyn lise wants to look a little younger. but after eyelid surgery she's unable to fully close her eyes. >> that's how it is every day, 24/7, 365 days a year. >> living with a mistake is bad enough. >> can you die from a plastic surgery? >> absolutely, it is possible to die from plastic surgery. we've seen it happen. >> take the case of this beauty queen. argentinean model solange magnano wants a bigger butt. >> why would a woman want a bigger butt? >> there are men out there who like big butts. we are a culture that wants to feel attractive. and if that's what makes us feel more attractive, then they want a bigger butt. >> the beauty queen goes in for the operation and then dies five days later. here's where some experts think the surgery goes wrong. whatever doctors inject into her butt to make it bigger, fat, silicone, or something else, a piece of it breaks off, tears through the bloodstream, then lodges in her lungs. without blood flow to her lungs, solange struggles to breathe. it's called a pulmonary embolism. death is a crazy price to pay for beauty. so make sure your surgeon is certified by the american board of plastic surgery. at number 20, dosage disasters. movie star dennis quaid's twins, thomas and zoe, develop an infection a few days after they're born. the quaids take the babies to the hospital for a course of antibiotics. a blood thinner called heparin is used to prepare their ivs. >> when you have an iv, there's a very, very, very dilute dose that they'll put a minuscule amount in the iv so that the iv doesn't clot up. >> when the babies get the iv, their blood unexpectedly turns thin as water. >> at one point as the doctors tried to clamp a bleeding wound in the remnant of t-boon's umbilical cord, blood spurted six feet across the room and splattered on the wall. >> doctors realize somebody has given the babies a massive overdose of heparin. 1,000 times more than it's supposed to be. >> they didn't notice that it was the wrong dose. >> here's how that overdose happens. >> the adult dose was in a dark blue vial. the pediatric dose was in a light blue vial. >> a technician accidentally puts the adult dose of heparin in the location where the children's dose is usually stored. then a nurse grabs the bottle without checking it. >> and our babies could have died that night. >> thankfully, doctors managed to control the bleeding, and the twins make a full recovery. workers stocking medication drawers make mistakes about 4% of the time. when you're in the hospital, ask for a daily list of medications and dosages and check them when they arrive. ahead on my list, you won't believe where this patient ends up after brain surgery. and tools left and forgotten in the worst place possible. ♪ under blue moon i saw you [ young man ] whoo-hoo! ♪ so soon you'll take me there he is! the party's arrived. ♪ [ both hiss ] [ screaming, explosions ] oh, he-- [ crickets chirping ] [ owl hooting ] [ gasps ] ♪ fate ♪ up against your will ♪ through the thick and thin mcallen, texas. in here, heavy rental equipment in the middle of nowhere, is always headed somewhere. to give it a sense of direction, at&t created a mobile asset solution to protect and track everything. so every piece of equipment knows where it is, how it's doing or where it goes next. ♪ this is the bell on the cat. [ male announcer ] it's a network of possibilities -- helping you do what you do... even better. ♪ fiber one. uh, forgot jack's cereal. [ jack ] what's for breakfast? um... try the number one! [ jack ] yeah, this is pretty good. [ male announcer ] half a day's worth of fiber. fiber one. we've already seen some bad medicine, counting down our 25 shocking medical mistakes. dosage disasters came in at number 20. at number 19, toxic transplants. joshua hightower needs a new kidney. he's on a list waiting his turn for the life-saving organ. a potential donor dies. joshua gets one of the man's kidneys and then suddenly, instead of getting better, he gets sicker. >> he was throwing up, headaches, had the shakes real bad. sleeping a lot. >> within months joshua is dead, at age 18. a doctor tells his mother he died of rabies. >> and i said, what do you mean rabies? like some foreign branch of rabies? or some kind that is, you know, uncommon or rare? and i said or the kind that you vaccinate your dog every year for? and he said, jennifer, the kind you vaccinate your dog every year for. >> and just how does this teenager get rabies, a virus that's spread by animals? that new kidney he gets is infected with rabies before it even gets inside his body. here's how it happens. the organ donor has been bitten by a bat, but no one knows it. the virus spreads through the bloodstream. >> no one suspected that this person had rabies. all the organs were transplanted. and all the recipients contracted rabies. >> only later did doctors realize the donor had all the symptoms of rabies from the beginning and they never should have used his organs. >> there's thousands and thousands of potential pathogens out there that organ donors could be infected with. rabies is so uncommon, the screening tests for rabies are not universally available. >> in the u.s. more than 100 people have been victims of similar toxic transplants. after a transplant if you get sicker instead of better ask if the other recipients from the same donor are also sick. early treatment could save your life. at numr 18 dumb discharge. james appston undergoes brain surgery. he goes back to the hospital for more testing. the staples are still fresh in his head when the staff packs him off alone in a taxi cab. >> most patients who are being discharged from the hospital should not be going home alone in a taxi cab. >> james is so disoriented he doesn't know his own address. >> i was -- i was confused. >> strangers find him asking for help after the taxi drops him off in an unfamiliar neighborhood. >> he was in the hospital gown, in only socks. it was wet, raining, cold out. he had bandages and staples in his head still from his surgeries. >> these good samaritans help james get home after his careless release. a lot of people feel woozy when they leave the hospital. so make sure you have a ride home from someone who knows where you live. at number 17, ambulance errors. a lot can go wrong on the way to the hospital. darlene deuce is struggling to breathe. she calls 911 and tells the operator where she is. >> 602 wales drive. >> 602 wales drive? >> yes. >> instead of dispatching an ambulance to wales drive, the dispatcher sends paramedics to wells street, w-e-l-l-s. 27 miles away from darlene. darlene dies from a blood clot, police say. after an ambulance takes more than 45 minutes to find her. >> very, very critical amount of time in terms of the response time necessary to save somebody's life. >> when you call 911, slowly say and spell out the name of the street address. at number 16, lost patients. nursing home patient mary cole turns up missing during a bed check. finding her becomes a manhunt. noted on her missing person poster, she suffers from alzheimer's disease and maybe disoriented. her daughter, tammy terry, clings to hope and joins the search. >> from morning until pitch dark. >> four days go by until mary is finally found inside the nursing home, locked in a storage closet. >> i believed and trusted them when they said we searched every room, every nook and cranny, we moved furniture, and it was a lie. >> mary is severely dehydrated and dies soon after. the family's lawyer says mary wandered into that closet and got trapped. >> my mom suffered for four days. and there's no excuse for it. >> 1 in 5 nursing home patients is prone to wandering. if your loved one sometimes wanders, consider getting them a gps bracelet that tracks their every move. at number 15, surgical souvenirs. nelson bailey comes out of surgery with a sponge left in his abdomen a foot long by a foot long. >> when they opened me up, the medical report shows that it was rotting. it created perforations in my intestines. >> here's how a sponge can get left behind by mistake. >> there's often blood, there's tissue. it's very difficult to see. and sometimes sponges are tucked under an organ inside you that they're not in clear view but they're soaking up some fluid or blood. >> take a look at this similar mistake. that's a six-inch clamp. and this is a 13-inch retractor. nurses are supposed to keep track of how many tools go inside you and make sure the same number come out. >> sometimes the initial count going in is wrong. the count going out is wrong. and mistakes happen. >> something gets left behind in as many as 2 out of every 10,000 surgeries. if you have unexpected fever, pain, or swelling after surgery, ask if you might have a surgical memento buried within. ahead on my list, air keeps us alive. so how does it kill this young man? and a mix-up at the maternity ward that leaves moms bonding with the wrong baby. hey, the new guy is loaded with protein! really? 25 grams of protein. what do we have? all four of us, together? 24. he's low fat, too, and has 5 grams of sugars. i'll believe it when i--- [ both ] oooooh... what's shakin'? [ female announcer ] as you get older, protein is an important part of staying active and strong. ensure high protein... fifty percent of your daily value of protein. low fat and five grams of sugars. see? he's a good egg. [ major nutrition ] ensure high protein... ensure! nutrition in charge! [ major nutrition ] ensure high protein... every communications provider is different but centurylink is committed to being a different kind of communications company. ♪ we link people and fortune 500 companies nationwide and around the world. and we will continue to free you to do more and focus on what matters. there's natural gas under my town. it's a game changer. ♪ it means cleaner, cheaper american-made energy. but we've got to be careful how we get it. design the wells to be safe. thousands of jobs. use the most advanced technology to protect our water. billions in the economy. at chevron, if we can't do it right, we won't do it at all. we've got to think long term. we've got to think long term. ♪ you know that comes with a private island? really? no. it comes with a hat. see, airline credit cards promise flights for 25,000 miles, but... [ man ] there's never any seats for 25,000 miles. frustrating, isn't it? but that won't happen with the capital one venture card. you can book any airline, anytime. hey, i just said that. after all, isn't traveling hard enough? ow! [ male announcer ] to get the flights you want, sign up for a venture card at capitalone.com. what's in your wallet? uh, it's ok. i've played a pilot before. the health care harm is stacking up as we count down our 25 shocking medical mistakes. surgical souvenirs came in at number 15. at number 14, baby switcheroos. >> come here, sweetie. oh, my god. >> what? >> wrong baby. >> what? >> wrong baby. >> like pam from "the office," monica garcia is the victim of a baby mix-up. she gives birth to her son mars leino. in the nursery he needs to eat, and a hospital worker hands the baby over to a stranger with the same last name. the wrong mother breast-feeds monica's baby. >> it's hard for me to accept that, you know, my child has been with somebody that i don't even know. >> i'd like to think that i would know if someone brought me a baby that wasn't mine. >> you might and you might not. most babies look pretty similar. they're all kind of just cute little cheeky things and they're not that easy to distinguish one from the other, especially if you've only seen it once or twice. >> so even a loving mother might confuse one baby for another baby? >> right. a loving mother will love the baby that she is brought. >> when a nurse hands you your baby, ask the nurse to match your baby's i.d. band with yours. at number 13, air bubbles in blood. after weeks in the hospital 19-year-old blake fout is excited to be going home. but before he can leave blake has one more thing to do. have a tube in his chest removed. while he's sitting upright, a nurse removes the tube and then seals it with gauze. >> you could hear popping from the central line site, and it was just -- that's called a sucking wound. and what it was doing was sucking air right into the vessels. >> it's called an air embolism. and that air is killing blake. >> the air was cutting off the blood supply to his lungs and to his heart, to his kidneys, and to his brain. >> the nurses failed to follow basic rules on removing a chest tube. blake should have been lying down, and the nurse should have sealed the hole airtight with vaseline. this doctor is blake's mother. she's only a medical student at the time of the mistake and doesn't know how to stop it. she begs the staff to do something, but no one calls for a doctor until it's too late. >> we went from planning a surprise party to planning a funeral. the most heart-wrenching thing i had to do was to go and wake my daughter up and tell her that her brother was not coming home ever. and i just -- it was horrible. >> while there's no national figure for tube errors, you should know a report looking at just one hospital's icu finds improperly removed tubes cause ten air embolisms a year. if you have a chest tube, ask how you should be positioned when the tube is taken out. at number 12, misdiagnosed. morgan mccracken gets socked in the head with a baseball. mom and dad ice the bump down. the 7-year-old seems fine. until two nights later, when she cries out for help. >> "mom, mom, my head. it's hurting." she was holding it. saying "my head's hurting. my head's hurting. >> the mccrackens rush morgan to the emergency room. >> we couldn't get to the hospital fast enough. >> i carried her in. she was too lethargic to walk. >> a doctor says don't worry. >> i'm sure it's late, she's tired, she probably has a touch of the flu. >> a gut feeling tells these parents the doctor has morgan's diagnosis wrong. >> this wasn't our morgan. she's had the flu before. this wasn't how she acted. >> they ask for a ct scan of her head, but the doctor won't listen. >> what is the consequence of a doctor not listening to you? >> they're failing to hear the first manifestation of a life-threatening illness, and they're failing to register and therefore look on your body for the first clues of that and begin to order the right tests. >> after hours of begging the doctor finally does listen and orders the ct scan. here's what he missed. a blood clot inside morgan's skull. a surgery saves her life. 1 out of every 10 diagnoses you receive from a doctor may be wrong. like morgan's parents you should trust your instincts. if a diagnosis doesn't sound right to you, get a second opinion. at number 11, transfusion confusion. blake oliver feels sharp pain in his stomach. he goes to the hospital.