A University of Oregon employee admitted himself to McKenzie-Willamette Hospital in Springfield at 4:15 p.m. Thursday because he feared he had come in contact with a biological agent while handling a suspicious letter addressed to University physics Professor Emeritus Bernd Crasemann, hospital officials said.
Hospital officials said the Lane County Public Health Department called the letter a “credible threat.”
Officials would not name the University employee, but they said he was not an assistant to Crasemann or the professor emeritus himself. The employee had apparently handled the letter, which Crasemann said contained a granular substance.
A hospital spokeswoman said the emergency room had been temporarily cleared.
Shortly after 4:15 p.m., hospital officials interviewed the employee to determine where he had come in contact with the letter, and when. The officials would not elaborate on the patient’s answers.
“He was not panicked,” said Tom Hambly, manager of emergency services for McKenzie-Willamette Hospital. “He was very lucid, and said he came in close contact with the letter and was concerned he had been exposed.”
Though anthrax is not contagious, hospital officials took the patient outside so he could remove his clothes and be cleansed with a decontaminating solution. Hambly said the precaution was taken to eliminate the possibility that spores had attached themselves to the patient’s clothing.
The officials then cleared the area and used a solution to “wipe down” the emergency room and the chair in which the patient originally sat.
At 5:30 p.m., members of the Hazardous Materials response team arrived outside the emergency room as part of a medical follow-up effort.
Two Eugene Fire Department trucks and another vehicle parked just outside the emergency room. Hospital security guards were posted at all entrances to the hospital, and patients and staff were allowed to enter only through the emergency room entrance on the building’s north side.
“We got dispatched to the University of Oregon this afternoon because of the letter,” a 14-year-veteran of the Eugene Fire Department, who would identify himself only as Andy, said. “We were ordered by the state. This is just a follow up.”
The patient treated for exposure to the unknown substance was declared safe and was released at 6 p.m., officials said. The emergency room then reopened.
The biological agent incident is the second in three weeks at McKenzie-Willamette Hospital. On Oct. 31, a man admitted a baby with flu-like symptoms and expressed concern that the child had been exposed to anthrax. Results were negative, a hospital official said.