Suspicious package causes alarm

Eight go to the hospital after opening the package with finely chopped newspaper.

By JOSH ZIMMER, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published October 12, 2002

TAMPA -- The discovery of a package stuffed with finely chopped newspaper prompted an emergency response operation Friday that resulted in at least eight people being given decontamination showers.

An initial analysis of the package's contents revealed nothing toxic, officials said.

The incident began at the University Mall on Fowler Avenue. Several employees at a University Community Hospital office inside the mall complained about burning noses after one of them opened the package, hospital spokesman Nancy Johnson Ryan said.

The package was sealed and later retrieved by a Hillsborough sheriff's deputy. The employees and the deputy then went to the main hospital, where a response team decontaminated them in the hospital's portable shower.

Although the county's infrared equipment found nothing dangerous in the package, the state Department of Health is performing a more detailed analysis, said Kenneth Sturrock, a member of the department's division of emergency management.

The burning sensation employees felt probably was a psychological reaction, said Fire and Rescue Batallion 2 chief Chris Reynolds.

"We treat everything as something significant until proven otherwise," Reynolds said, "especially in this day and age."

Except for minor glitches -- the package, for example, should have been given to the county's Hazmat unit instead of the Health Department lab at the University of South Florida -- Sturrock labeled the response "superb."

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