Hospital receives phone threat, but no patients are evacuated
By John Joyce
Published in News on October 7, 2015 1:46 PM
A bomb threat put Wayne Memorial Hospital on alert early this morning, as Goldsboro police and fire departments responded to assist Wayne Memorial Hospital Police with its investigation.
The caller did not say where the bomb was, officials said. It took two hours to clear the building.
Interim Goldsboro Police Chief Mike West said the threat proved to be unfounded.
The call came in at 12:51 a.m.
Assistant Fire Chief Frank Sasser was on duty at the time and said the fire department staged across the street from the hospital. He said people were waiting outside for quite a while, but hospital officials said there was no actual evacuation.
"All we were told was there was a bomb at Wayne Memorial Hospital. There was no location given," Sasser said. "It was supposed to go off in 10 minutes," he said.
Wayne Memorial Hospital communications director Georgia Dees said the threat was first called in to the Wayne County 911 communications center, which in turn contacted the hospital police.
"The staff was alerted to follow their procedures that are in place for when a bomb threat is called in," she said. "That includes checking their areas for any suspicious packages or anything that looks out of the ordinary," Mrs. Dees added.
Hospital police and Goldsboro police searched the building but also found nothing.
Mrs. Dees said one of the women on staff this morning during the bomb threat has been with the hospital for 40 years.
"She said she has never had one before," Mrs. Dees said.
Administrators at the hospital did not learn of today's bomb threat until this morning, but they are in contact with hospital police, who as of this morning following up with their own investigation.
After speaking with hospital police, Mrs. Dees said the phone call proved to be untraceable and there is no way for the investigation to proceed.
It is also unknown at this time whether there is any connection between this instance and a similar threat phoned in to the Walgreens located on Wayne Memorial Drive two weeks earlier.
That investigation is being conducted by Goldsboro police.