OREM — Timpanogos Regional Hospital's staff mobilized for a disaster Monday night after Orem police alerted them that as many as 50 employees of a software company might have been exposed to anthrax.
More than 100 hospital employees donned protective gear and the hospital was locked down from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m., refusing all new patients except three men who noticed a mysterious powdery substance after one opened a package in the mail room of Symantec's Orem office at 1359 Research Drive.
Hospital staff stripped the three men and decontaminated them in a portable wash area outside the emergency room, then put them in clean clothes and treated them. The precautions were necessary, police and health officials said, but the scare proved to be a false alarm.
The men, whose identities were not released, were allowed to go home at 9:30 Monday night, and by early Tuesday morning, health officials had confirmed police field tests that showed the substance was not hazardous.
"Only one of the three employees had an initial reaction," Symantec spokesman Jerry Gowen said. "We sent all three to the hospital as a precautionary measure. Even the one who said he felt hot and sweaty didn't want to go."
Gowen said the man didn't complain of nausea, contrary to early reports.
Two of the men are employees of Allied Security, which has a contract with Symantec to provide security officers. The other man was a Symantec employee. All three were in the mailroom late Monday afternoon when one opened an envelope from a New York company and found a book enclosed by shredded paper, Orem Police Lt. Bob Conner said.
The men also saw what they described as a powder, Gowen said.
Symantec is the world's largest maker of anti-virus computer software, but if the package was intended to cause a scare, Symantec wasn't the target.
Conner said the envelope was addressed to a business adjacent to Symantec, which shares the building with PowerQuest Corp., which it owns, and the Global Service Desk of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Conner did not reveal the name of the company that sent the package or the name of its intended recipient.
Hospital spokeswoman Jackie Brown said the hospital conducted disaster training for an anthrax scenario just last month and that staffers followed procedures, which include the washings.
"If people are contaminated and are allowed into the hospital, you could contaminate your entire hospital," she said.
Hospital officials initially heard they might be dealing with anthrax, but a police field test for the poison was negative at the scene. A second test for ricin completed later Monday night was also negative, Conner said.
Symantec initially planned to remain closed on Tuesday, but the early test results led officials to open the building at noon.
The scare was reminiscent of events in the fall of 2001 after domestic terrorists sent letters containing anthrax through the U.S. postal system.
"Back then, we had several of these (scares) every week," said Dr. Joseph K. Miner, director of the Utah County Health Department. "Now the number has diminished to quite infrequent, so that when one does occur, it's a little less usual."
Miner and Brown said the incident provided additional training for responders. Conner praised the caution used by Symantec and its employees.
"We prefer people be careful," he said. "More people are being alert, more people are being suspicious (since 2001). We're getting more calls that may be about something people may have seen in the past, but because of heightened awareness, they're being more cautious.
"Their heightened awareness feeds more calls sometimes. This may have been one of those."
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