Grounds for suspension?

If a specimen was lost from a derm office and the employee made note of it as well as searched the entire office up and down many times and did everything they could to find it. But in the end the patient accidentally took the specimen home thinking it was a sample we were giving him. Does it call for grounds to suspend the employee who realized it was gone without pay for 5 days even though this employee told the administrators the patient had it but they refused to call him and the patient ended up calling us saying he had it by accident and that the employee never once said he could take it.