BAKERSFIELD -- The Kern County Animal shelter misused the chemical potassium chloride to euthanize animals with in 2000, causing agonizing deaths for hundreds of strays and pets, 23 News has learned.

An average of 20,000 animals are euthanized by the county each year. The standard method is an injection with a solution of sodium pentobarbital. But in the spring of 2000, the FDA temporarily shut down the manufacturer of sodium pentobarbital, and there was a nationwide shortage of the euthanasia solution.

Shelters nationwide scrambled to find more. Kern County Animal Control found its own alternative -- a very painful one.

"The animals would convulse. It was extremely painful for them," said B.J. Hinds, a former Kern County Animal Control shelter employee.

Hinds, along with Bonnie Hernandez, a former Animal Control officer who gained national attention when she located and helped save two kidnapped girls from their abductor in 2002, are speaking out on the use of potassium chloride because they don't want it to happen again. They say they were both given potassium chloride during the euthanasia solution shortage to put animal down.

They say at first they were given no other medications to sedate the animals.

"They would twist and spin, urinate, feces everywhere.... it took a long time for the suffering to stop before they went down," said Hinds.

"That was the hardest thing I ever had to do in my life," she said.

Hernandez said she only used the potassium chloride once because it was so horrifying. "I ended up shooting the dog because it was so painful for the animal," said Hernandez.

According to the American Veterinary Medical Association, which sets the standards for euthanasia in animals, potassium chloride can only be used to euthanize animals if the animal is under general anesthesia, and they are so unconscious surgery can be performed. But used alone, potassium chloride is listed as "unaccepable," and is "absolutely condemned."

"Potassium chloride used without anesthesia would be a very painful death," said Dr. Cherry Johnson, a veterinarian who teaches a pharmacology class at Bakersfield College. "It would be very stressful to the animal and for the person administering it. It is inhumane."

Hinds said that after several weeks of using the potassium chloride alone, she could no longer stand to watch the animals die in so much pain, so she demanded something more. She said she was given the animal tranquilizers ketamine, acepromazine and Rompum. But she said, as with the potassium chloride, she received no direction on how to use them. She said that even with the additional sedatives, the animals remained awake.

Steve McCalley, the Director of Environmental Sciences which oversees Animal Control admits they did use potassium chloride, but maintains they did nothing wrong.

"Our supplier that we received the euthanasia solution from substituted the potassium chloride and acepromazine and provided direction on how to use the material. That use of potassium chloride is approved by the AVMA consistent with their year 2000 report on euthanasia," he said.

But local veterinarian Dr. Paul Ulrich disagrees.

"The use of potassium chloride and acepromazine by itself as an injection into the heart is contraindicated because of the fact that it causes a severe amount of pain," Dr. Ulrich said.

Ulrich, from the Bakersfield Veterinary Hospital, said those two drugs used together would not be in compliance with AVMA guidelines and would be inhumane.

McCalley maintains the county was just following directions. "We followed those protocols based on a licensed veterinary professional providing that guidance to us," said MCalley.

So who was the county's supplier and veterinary hospital at the time? Bakersfield Veterinary Hospital, owned by Ulrich. He said they did fill a county order for potassium chloride at the time, but did not know how it would be used. He said McCalley's claims are not true.

"There was no one at Bakersfield Veterinary Hospital that gave any advice regarding the intracardiac injection of potassium chloride and acepromazine, Ulrich said. He said there was no advice given on any use of potassium chloride, whatsoever, in any form of administration.

Although neither Hinds nor Hernandez say they were forced to use potassium chloride after the sodium pentobarbital shortage was over about five weeks later, Hinds remembers the words of another shelter worker. "When I left it was still under the cabinet. I asked if we should send it back and they said we might end up needing it again."