The Christus Spohn Hospital located in Corpus Christi, Texas, reported that it has started the investigation concerning the 17 overdoses of the Heparin blood thinner drug that were given to babies in its intensive care unit.

The drug is used to prevent blood clots from forming in IV lines as well as for cleaning them. Nurses found Sunday that about 17 children were given overdoses of the drug, and that this supposedly happened for 2 days. The nurses stopped the drug’s use and administered medication to counteract the negative effects where it was needed.

However, one baby died after the overdose. The investigation that was started by the hospital aims at finding out whether the incident is a result of the Heparin overdose or not, since the baby was already seriously ill in the beginning and could have died of other causes. Another aim of the investigation is to find out how it was possible for the incident to take place.

At this moment, it is believed that the error occurred during the mixing process for the IVs in the hospital’s pharmacy. Two staff members have already left their positions of their own accord, expecting the results of the investigation.

It seems that blood thinner overdose has been quite a common case in hospitals during the last year and a half. During this period of time 180 such incidents were reported. The best known of them was the one involving the twins of actor Denis Quaid, which almost died after being administered a dose of blood thinner 1000 times more concentrated than it was supposed to.