( CNN ) -- A New Hampshire hospital worker was sentenced to 39 years in prison Monday for causing a multistate outbreak of hepatitis C last year , according to a news release from the U.S. attorney 's office in New Hampshire . David Kwiatkowski pleaded guilty to seven counts of tampering with a consumer product and seven counts of obtaining controlled substances by fraud in New Hampshire 's U.S. District Court , according to a plea agreement filed in August . Thirty people were diagnosed with the virus that attacks the liver and can be fatal . Ten months after he was diagnosed with hepatitis C , Kwiatkowski began working at New Hampshire 's Exeter Hospital in April 2011 . Investigators said Kwiatkowski stole syringes of the painkiller fentanyl from patients who were scheduled for surgery . `` Kwiatkowski used the stolen syringes to inject himself , causing them to become tainted with his infected blood , before filling them with saline and then replacing them for use in the medical procedure , '' the U.S. attorney 's office in Concord , New Hampshire , said in a statement . `` Consequently , instead of receiving the prescribed dose of fentanyl , patients instead received saline tainted by Kwiatkowski 's infected blood . '' According to the plea agreement , Kwiatkowski told an investigator , `` I 'm going to kill a lot of people out of this . '' Before moving to New Hampshire , Kwiatkowski worked as a traveling medical technician for hospitals in Arizona , Georgia , Kansas , Maryland , Michigan , New York and Pennsylvania , officials in those states said . Kwiatkowski was fired from an Arizona hospital in 2010 after a fellow employee found him passed out in the men 's room with a syringe floating in the toilet , according to documents obtained by CNN . A spokeswoman for the Arizona Heart Hospital said Kwiatkowski was immediately fired , and he relinquished his license as a radiologic technologist . Controversy surrounds health care contract workers . CNN 's Holly Yan contributed to this report .
Former medical technician sentenced to 10 years in hepatitis C outbreak . David had injected himself with painkillers , then used syringes on patients . Thirty people were infected with the virus that attacks the body . Kwiatkowski worked in New Hampshire , Arizona , California , among other states .