Sumith Prasad
Created by Kasper Barfoed, Netflix’s Danish crime series ‘The Nurse’ revolves around Pernille Kurzmann Larsen, who joins Nykøbing Falster Hospital for her first nursing job. As she tries her best to keep up with the demands of the emergency department of the hospital, a fellow ER nurse named Christina Aistrup Hansen takes the former under her wing.
While forming a professional bond with Christina, Pernille notices that several inexplicable deaths are happening in their department in the presence of her mentor. Intrigued by Pernille’s efforts to unravel the mystery behind the same, we found out whether she has a real-life counterpart. Well, let us share our findings!
Pernille Kurzmann Larsen is Based on a Real Nurse
Yes, Pernille Kurzmann Larsen is based on a real nurse. In reality, Pernille joined the Nykøbing Falster Hospital in 2014. She often teamed up with Christina during the night shifts. A few months after her appointment, Pernille started to notice the deaths of several patients, who suddenly stopped breathing without a reasonable cause. She also noticed Christina’s presence among the same patients, which made her suspect her colleague’s involvement in those deaths.
“I think Christina is killing the patients. I think she’s doing it on purpose,” Pernille told another nurse named Katja, according to Kristian Corfixen’s source text of the series ‘The Nurse: Inside Denmark’s Most Sensational Criminal Trial.’ Pernille shared her concerns with her partner and doctor Niels Lundén as well. Although she wanted to find out the truth behind the deaths, they wanted to avoid falsely accusing a colleague.
Pernille’s suspicions grew when she saw traces of diazepam in the side port of a patient named Viggo Holm Petersen. She started to believe that the inexplicable deaths that had been occurring in the ER were caused by diazepam injections. Viggo was one of the multiple patients who died in the ER within a few hours’ difference, all while Christina was working. The breakthrough in her “secret investigation” happened when Pernille found a syringe with possible traces of diazepam in the room of a patient named Maggi Margrethe Rasmussen right after Christina left the room.
By the time Pernille discovered the syringe, more deaths had happened in the ER. When Maggi’s health deteriorated, Niels told Pernille that it was time for them to call the police. Pernille told the officers that three patients (Viggo, Anna Lise, and Svend Aage) died within twelve hours in the ER and the life of a fourth one (Maggi) was saved from the brink of death.
“The witness [Pernille] states that she for some time has suspected another nurse—Christina Aistrup Hansen—of abusing her position: the witness suspects that her colleague had given the patients medication which caused their deaths/cardiac arrest,” the police officers wrote in their report after talking to Pernille, as per Corfixen’s book. As per the police report, Pernille saw Christina in Maggi’s room with two syringes that were bigger than the normally used ones in the ER. When Christina was tried, Pernille was the most important witness in the case. Her testimony seemingly played an integral role in the conviction of the former.
Pernille Kurzmann Larsen is Working at the Nykøbing Falster Hospital Now
Pernille Kurzmann Larsen still works at the emergency department of the Nykøbing Falster Hospital, located in Southern Denmark. Her involvement in Christina’s case affected her life severely after the latter’s arrest. She had to listen to the people around her describing her as a backstabber. “[…] at the hospital, her [Pernille’s] colleagues from the A&E Department expressed a reluctance to work with her, because they feared she might accuse them of something they had not done,” Corfixen wrote in his book.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t all. “Some colleagues even raised the idea that it could just as easily have been Pernille who administered the medication which founded the case,” the author added. Pernille heard that some of her colleagues were scared of walking with a syringe at the emergency department since they thought that the former would report them to the police as well. Still, Pernille continued to work in the same hospital. She eventually married Niels Lundén.
The couple started to live in the town of Maribo, located in the Lolland Municipality. Both of them had a child from a previous relationship and they lived along with them. Soon, the couple had a son together as well. Her husband Niels, however, left the Nykøbing Falster Hospital since he couldn’t accept how the hospital administration dealt with Christina’s case. Pernille talked to Corfixen for the latter’s book, which became the source material of the series.
“I have been left in a vacuum, where the only thing people have to refer to is the media articles about a possible love triangle. I need to know that my story is made available to the public. So that people at least have an opportunity to understand that I am not the ice-cold hobby detective I have been presented as being in court,” the nurse told the author about her decision to give the interview after much deliberation.
Read More: Where is Netflix’s The Nurse Filmed?
