A nurse left a personal cosmetic bag behind on a medication cart at an Iowa nursing home on Dec. 18, 2025. When a colleague picked it up, a needle inside stuck her. Iowa Board of Nursing records say the bag held several uncapped used syringes with visible blood traces and bent needles — and that the nurse later told an investigator she had been using cocaine “on and off” since 2021.
The board revoked the nursing license of Ranae Fallis, of West Des Moines, this month after she failed to show up for a hearing on the charges that followed the incident, according to Iowa Capital Dispatch, which first reported the case Oct. 19, 2026.
What the board says happened
Fallis was working at the facility when she set the bag down on the cart, the board alleges. The colleague who was stuck by the exposed needle flagged it to supervisors, and a closer look turned up multiple syringes that had already been used. The facility fired Fallis about four weeks later, in mid-January 2026.
When a board investigator interviewed her, Fallis said the bag was hers and that she had been struggling with a cocaine addiction for several years. She denied using drugs immediately before or after a shift, telling the investigator her use happened on her own time, away from work.
A second trip through the disciplinary process
This was not Fallis’s first encounter with the board. She tested positive for cocaine in 2022, which led the board to place her license on probation for 18 months starting in April 2023. Having a prior drug-related finding on her record is part of why the board treated the needle incident as serious enough to pursue revocation rather than another period of monitoring.
In April 2026, the board formally charged Fallis with habitual intoxication or addiction to a drug and with engaging in behavior contrary to professional decorum — the standard language Iowa uses when a nurse’s substance use puts patients or coworkers at risk. Fallis did not appear at the hearing scheduled to contest those charges. Under board procedure, a nurse who skips her own hearing forfeits the chance to present a defense, and the board revoked her license rather than leave the matter open.
Why this matters for nurses
I’ve worked med carts on night shift, and the scenario here is a nightmare I’ve seen play out in slower motion: a colleague you trust, a bag you don’t think twice about moving out of the way, and then a needle you never saw coming. Needle-stick exposure is already one of the most common workplace injuries nurses face from legitimate clinical sharps — finding out afterward that the needle belonged to a coworker’s undisclosed drug use, with no idea what was in it, is a different level of violation. Addiction among nurses is a real and well-documented occupational hazard, and plenty of boards handle it through monitored treatment programs rather than revocation. What moved this case past that option wasn’t the addiction itself; it was a second finding, a missed hearing, and a colleague who got stuck with a needle that was never supposed to be on that cart in the first place.
Fallis could not be reached for comment, and the Capital Dispatch reported it was unable to reach her as well. The board’s revocation order is a civil licensing action, not a criminal case; Fallis has not been reported as facing criminal charges over the incident.