Excitement at the Hospital

OHSU Emergency Room

Everyday is chaos at OHSU Hospital up on Pill Hill. It's nothing to be concerned about, it's just the way things are there, and probably at every big city hospital. The other day there was a little more excitement than usual.

Rumor has it that a woman walked into the Emergency Room carrying two bottles of kerosene. She then walked into the bathroom and set fire to the bathroom. Now she walks out of the Emergency Room with her shoes on fire. She goes to the bus stop outside the door and boards the bus with her shoes still on fire and vanishes.

You might think something like that would get the authorities excited, but you would be wrong. I looked on City of Portland Police website but could find nothing. So I sent an email to the chief of police. Here is the reply I got:

Hi and thank you for your email. It’s not possible for me to search all our records for an incident such as this.  It’s is also unclear if we would have been called. OHSU has their own police department and might have just handled it.  There are many many situations like this where police are either not called or it is resolved in a different way.  Best, Terri

Terri is a Public Information Officer (nonsworn)

Of course, all I have is third hand scuttlebutt, so it might have been nothing like I described. It might just have been somebody lighting a match in the bathroom to get rid of the stink, and the shoes might just have been steaming because they were hot-blooded. Who knows?

I like the original version of the story better.