Hot rock taken to hospital

Friday, 17 September 2010 The emergency room at the Sky Ridge Medical Center in Denver, Colorado, was closed for more than an hour after a patient arrived with a radioactive rock in his pocket, the Denver Post reported. Linda Watson, a spokeswoman for Sky Ridge, said that the hospital's emergency preparedness response team sprung into action, tested the rock and confirmed the man's claim that it was radioactive. The South Metro Fire Rescue Authority hazardous materials (hazmat) team was then called. During the incident, the patient and a handful of emergency room personnel were isolated and the emergency room roped off, Watson said. The hazmat team determined that the rock was not harmful and that neither the patient or hospital staff were affected. The emergency room reopened while the rock was taken away for analysis. A spokeswoman for the fire authority, Becky O'Guin, said there was nothing unique about the rock - it was a rock that would be found "naturally" in the out-of-doors. It is not known why the man took the rock to the hospital.