MEDINA
False scare locks down hospital
MEDINA — Medina Memorial Hospital was locked down for about four hours Tuesday after a woman reported getting a rash and displayed other symptoms when she opened a phone bill at her home in the Town of Albion.
The woman went to the emergency room at Medina Memorial at about 1:50 p. m., and officials quickly isolated her and restricted people from entering or leaving the hospital, said Jim Simmer, the hospital administrator.
Hospital staffers also decontaminated about 40 people who had come into close contact with the woman, Simmer said.
U. S. Postal Service spokeswoman Karen Mazurkiewicz said the woman brought the phone bill to an Albion Post Office earlier in the day and described her symptoms to workers, who contacted postal inspectors.
The Post Office was closed while inspectors checked the phone bill, but nobody who came into contact with the woman was quarantined or decontaminated. It is unclear if Post Office workers directed the woman to go to the emergency room, Mazurkiewicz said.
By about 5:45 p. m. Tuesday, postal inspectors had determined that there was nothing harmful in the envelope or on the phone bill, Mazurkiewicz said.
Simmer described the incident as a good test of the hospital’s hazardous materials response protocols that have been in place for years but so far have only been tried during practice drills.
