Bomb’s Away!

This morning on the way to work the train in front of mine broke down so I was delayed getting to work. While waiting I received a text from Kate. She informed me that she had heard on the news, a case containing 1.5 million records of patients of The University of Utah Hospitals and clinics had been recovered. The case had been stolen from a courier who had contracted with the hospital to move them to an off site location for storage. The whole incident had caused quite a stir, as some of the records had contained patients’ social security numbers. So news of the case’s recovery made for a promising day.

Then shortly before 10:00 we got a notification to sweep our areas for suspicious items. We’ve had these requests before, so we didn’t think too much about it. (We did sweep the area as instructed.) Soon thereafter we went into full code mode, locking down the entire hospital; no one in, no one out. It seems that some cowardly loser thought it would be funny to call in a bomb threat.

As the Disaster Coordinator for Patient Access I found myself right in the middle of all the action as the day unfolded. As a level 1 trauma center we have to be prepared for all kinds of disasters, and we drill quite frequently. But it was really strange being in a situation where instead of bringing in a mass of patients we were trying to see where we could send patients out if we had to. I didn’t think about it until I was on the way home, but I had been walking (running, really) around a building that could have been blown to bits at any moment. It made for a very strange day.

After multiple sweeps of the building it was determined that the threat was an empty hoax, and we got the call to stand down. I don’t know who called in the threat. I don’t know if it was related to the recovery of the stolen medical records. And really, I don’t care. Whoever this person is, I hope he or she is caught, because this person deserves a public flogging! Honestly, who calls in a bomb threat to a hospital? The police had all access roads to the hospital blocked off. So patients who had been dropped off for treatment couldn’t be picked up. Family members who had come to see inpatients weren’t able to leave initially. Being in the hospital or having a loved one in a hospital is stressful enough. No one deserves the added stress of a bomb threat. And if we had had to evacuate that stress would have been compounded. For some of our patients being evacuated to another hospital or home would be a major inconvenience. For others it would be life threatening.

But whoever called it in didn’t think of that. Just another pathetic loser. I’ll say it again: public repeated flogging.

I appreciate everyone who called to make sure I was okay. All one of you. I am fine. Just really irritated (if you couldn’t tell). I have to take my hat off to the doctors, nurses and support staff who were involved all the way down to the housekeepers. No one complained about the personal danger they could have been in. Everyone worked together to meet the needs of our patients and families and handled the situation with the greatest professionalism. It was a day when I walked out really proud to be associated with such a fine institution.