A Randolph County Emergency Services employee is lodged in the Tygart Valley Regional Jail after she allegedly stole morphine from paramedic supply bags and replaced the drug with saline solution.

Tonya M. Wadsworth, 38, is charged with creating a counterfeit substance and theft of a controlled substance, both felonies. The Randolph County Sheriff’s Department arrested Wadsworth Wednesday after a nearly a four-month investigation.

Wasdsworth allegedly extracted morphine into a syringe from vials partially used for patients and injected herself with the drug, according to Deputy B.T. Pawelczyk.

The vials hold 10 milligrams of morphine, according to Pawelczyk.

Ray Chaney, who oversees the emergency squad services, refused to say whether Wadsworth is a paramedic or emergency medical technician.

Sheriff J.D. Roy said there is no evidence that suggests Wadsworth was under the influence of morphine while on duty,

Patient morphine dosages must be documented and any morphine remaining in the vials must be accounted for by either the Randolph County Emergency Squad or Davis Memorial Hospital, he said. To ensure supervising authorities were unaware of the missing morphine, Wadsworth allegedly filled the morphine vials with saline solution, Pawelczyk said.

There are no allegations that any patients received morphine dosages diluted with saline, Pawelczyk said. After each vial of morphine is opened, it must be replaced with a new vial, Pawelczyk said. It is alleged that Wadsworth would administer a morphine dosage of less than the 10 milligrams to a patient and then extract the rest or a portion of the leftover morphine for herself, Pawelczyk said. Deputies determined Wadsworth to be the suspect of the morphine theft after better securing all paramedic bags, Roy said.

Wadsworth is being held on a $20,000 cash only bond and other criminal charges are pending, he said.

The Randolph County Sheriff’s Department has been investigating since December when Chaney told Roy about concerns of patient medication theft. Pawelczyk, along with Deputies M.P. Dyer, M.T. Brady and J.A. Burns investigated the incident.