A Eugene utilities employee probably didn’t imagine his lunch would cause such a commotion.
But that’s exactly what happened Wednesday, when an unidentified construction worker’s Igloo lunch box drew the attention of the Eugene Police Department and the bomb disposal team.
Eugene Police Officer Pete Aguilar said the situation could hardly be called a bomb scare because the Eugene Police Department handled the situation in only 15 minutes.
Aguilar said police received a call at 11:50 a.m. and responded within three minutes to an unidentified package left on the corner of 13th Avenue and Agate Street. The package turned out to be an Igloo cooler that an Eugene Water and Electric Board construction worker later said fell off his truck.
But Aguilar said officers treated the situation as if the lunch box might be an explosive because they could not see inside the container.
Officers used police tape to create a safety area around the scene and keep pedestrians from approaching the lunch box. Police cars and cones blocked traffic while the officers waited to hear from the bomb disposal team as to how to handle the situation.
While they were waiting, the unidentified construction worker approached the scene and retrieved his lunch box, safely resolving the situation by 12:25 p.m.