School nurses mistakenly gave the swine flu vaccine to two students who didn't sign up for it - including a Brooklyn girl with epilepsy who wound up in the hospital.
"I was outraged," Naomi Troy, 26, told the Daily News after her 6-year-old daughter, Nikiyah Torres-Pierre, had a possible allergic reaction to the shot.
Officials at Public School 335 in Crown Heights called an ambulance to take Nikiyah to SUNY Downstate Medical Center when she fell ill following the arm jab.
"My stomach was hurting, and I was itching," Nikiyah said after she was released from the hospital.
The snafu and a similar mixup at a Staten Island school came in the first days of the city's in-school H1N1 vaccination program.
City officials have stressed the vaccine is safe and urged parents to sign up for it - though less than half have sent in permission slips.
Troy was waiting for advice from her family doctor on whether Nikiyah should get the shot since she takes medicine to control her epilepsy.
When the nurse called for a student Thursday morning, Nikiyah's teacher misunderstood and sent the wrong student, Troy said.
The error was compounded when the nurse didn't check Nikiyah's name before sticking her in the shoulder, the mother said.
"The school made a horrible mistake," she added. "They never asked for her name. They have no paperwork....How do you make a mistake like this?"
After the mistake was discovered, officials summoned Troy to the school, she said.
Troy said the nurse - a Department of Health employee - tried to get her to sign a consent form, after the fact.
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Saturday, November 14, 2009
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