Attorney General Kwame Raoul announced his office has charged a former Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital employee, Mitchell R. Gunther, 39, of Burbank, Illinois, who allegedly stole and sold approximately 10 tanks of nitrous oxide, a medical gas used as an anesthetic in medical procedures and surgeries. According to Raoul, Gunther worked as an assistant in charge of Lurie Children’s Hospital’s medical tank gas supply from June 2020 until March 2022. In October of 2021, another hospital employee observed abnormalities in the medical gas storage room and the gas delivery systems, including tanks missing from storage supply racks and an increase in nitrous oxide deliveries. In March of 2022, Lurie staff deemed the hospital’s supply of nitrous oxide gas as being critical when only one tank remained attached to the hospital’s gas supply.
According to Raoul, an investigation revealed video of Gunther on three occasions using his personal vehicle to transport tanks of nitrous oxide outside work hours. Gunther’s employment with Lurie’s was subsequently terminated. Raoul alleges that after being fired by Lurie Children’s Hospital, Gunther traveled to St. Mary’s Hospital on Chicago’s West Side and posed as a nitrous oxide delivery driver for Medox, a gas delivery company Gunther previously was employed by. Raoul alleges Gunther stole two tanks of nitrous oxide from St. Mary’s and replaced them with empty tanks.
