'Suspicious Package' In Aspinwall Turns Out To Be Possibly Stolen Laxatives
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ASPINWALL (KDKA) -- The bomb squad was called out to Aspinwall to check out a suspicious package in a precarious place Friday afternoon.
It caused both road and rail traffic to be halted for a bit.
Aspinwall Police and Firefighters were taking no chances after someone reported several suspicious packages left under the railroad trestle in the 400 block of Freeport Road. Several businesses across the road were evacuated.
"We had called the bomb squad to let them know what was going on, and they wanted to come out and x-ray it," acting Aspinwall Police Chief Dave Nemec said. "We had the traffic shut down for 300 feet both ways on Freeport Road. The railroad was shut down until they got here."
After the packages were x-rayed, it was determined that they contained a strange substance called ethylene glycol that might have been stolen from nearby UPMC St. Margaret Hospital and left there for reasons unknown.
"What they said it was was like a concentrated laxative that they use over at the hospital, so that's what we have on it right now," Nemec said.
Authorities will check with the hospital as they investigate how it got there and why it was dumped there, but in this day and age, they have to take suspicious packages seriously.
"Not with everything that's going on today and what's been going on down in Texas, we just wanted to err on the side of caution and contact all the authorities we needed to and make sure it was safe for the community and everybody working around here," Nemec said.