‘Resuscitation Rambo’ Nurse Was the Star of the ICU for Saving Patients. But He Was Hiding a Sinister Secret

For years, a grim pattern followed nurse Niels Högel through two hospitals in northern Germany: patients kept dying at alarming rates whenever he was on duty. Investigators would later conclude those deaths weren’t coincidence — they were the result of a man who repeatedly engineered medical crises so he could stage his own dramatic “rescues.”

Högel was convicted in 2019 of murdering 85 patients between 2000 and 2005, and investigators have said the true number may be far higher, according to police and court records cited by The Guardian, BBC News and The New York Times.

Authorities determined that Högel injected patients with unauthorized heart drugs — including ajmaline, amiodarone and sotalol — deliberately triggering cardiac arrest before returning to perform resuscitations, per NPR.

“It was the clinical daily routine which failed to challenge me,” Högel said in court, per German outlet Deutsche Welle, adding that he would feel good for days after reviving a patient.

In the early 2000s, Högel worked at Oldenburg Clinic, where doctors noticed an unusual number of emergencies and deaths during the times he cared for patients. Yet the suspected pattern was never reported to authorities, The Guardian reported. Högel was known by the nickname “Resuscitation Rambo,” a reference to his tendency toward dramatic resuscitation attempts.

Instead of escalating concerns to police, hospital leaders encouraged him to move to another clinic — and later gave him what investigators described as a “spotless” reference when he applied to a second facility in Delmenhorst.

At Delmenhorst, the trend worsened. A later review of hospital records found that out of 411 intensive care deaths recorded over three years, 321 occurred during or shortly after Högel’s shifts, according to the Times. Investigators and prosecutors also said the unit’s death rate roughly doubled during his time there — but the spike still was not reported to law enforcement.

The case finally began to unravel in 2005, when another nurse in Delmenhorst saw Högel inject a patient with an unprescribed heart drug. That patient died the next day.

Hospital management waited two days before contacting police — and in that window, Högel was able to kill one final patient, per NPR.

He was arrested and later, in 2008, convicted of attempted murder connected to the 2005 incident and sentenced to prison. But the full scope of his actions remained undiscovered for years. After the case returned to court and Högel admitted to dozens more unauthorized injections, investigators ordered a sweeping review of deaths at the Oldenburg and Delmenhorst hospitals.

Under pressure from families, authorities exhumed more than 130 bodies from cemeteries across Germany and neighboring countries to test for traces of the drugs linked to the deaths, The Guardian and BBC reported. Still, police warned they would never be able to determine the true number of victims because many patients had been cremated.

By 2017, a special police commission said it had evidence tying Högel to at least 90 murders, with at least as many additional suspected deaths that could not be proven.

“The death toll is unique in the history of the German republic,” chief investigator Arne Schmidt said at the time, adding that the findings left him “speechless.”

Police and prosecutors have since said they suspect the total may exceed 200 victims, while acknowledging that gaps in Högel’s memory — combined with the number of cremations — mean the exact figure may never be known.

At his 2019 trial, Högel faced 100 murder charges connected to deaths at both hospitals. Over seven months of proceedings, he admitted to 43 killings, denied five, and said he could not remember the rest, per the Times.

Judges ultimately convicted him of 85 murders in 2019 and imposed a life sentence, calling the crimes “incomprehensible” and saying his guilt surpassed “human imagination.”

“The extent of the killings is unique in the history of the German republic,” Schmidt said, according to the BBC.