UPDATE: Incident was a hoax

It was a hoax that put a hospital and dozens of emergency responders on alert in Marquette County Thursday evening.

A representative from the Ishpeming Police Department says it involved a call claiming that someone had been exposed to a possible  World War Two nerve agent.  The caller was advised to take the exposed individual to Bell Hospital.

The hospital and local police, fire and rescue personnel prepared for the arrival of the patient, who could have contaminated others, by closing down access to the hospital and its parking lot before 8 p.m.

Ruth Solinksi, Vice President of Organizational Development at Bell Hospital in Ishpeming, says the facility received notification of a possible high risk patient on the way to the hospital.  Solinski told ABC 10 the patient did not arrive.  By 9:30 p.m, with the emergency situation unfounded, normal operations resumed.

All indications earlier in the evening pointed to an emergency incident involving a possible nerve agent had occurred.

Emergency response crews, including police, fire and rescue teams were dispatched to secure the outside of the hospital for more than an hour.

Earlier in the evening, authorities kept bystanders in an area of the parking lot near the main entrance to the hospital parking lot, specifically telling people to stay ‘downwind’ from the building.