What was thought to be a gas leak at a downtown Toronto hospital that evacuated part of the building turned out to be nothing serious. But investigators are still trying to determine why it happened.
Three floors of Mount Sinai Hospital were evacuated around 3 p.m. Wednesday after people noticed a noxious smell inside the building. Officials initially suspected a gas leak but they were unsure what substance was leaking in an eighth floor lab.
Firefighters and police were called to the building and the evacuation of floors that house laboratories began. The southbound lanes of University Avenue from College to Dundas were also closed.
However, patients were not evacuated because those floors were not affected by
Early reports said that either Freon or formaldehyde had leaked from a refrigeration unit, but neither one proved to be true.
"In these types of calls you get erroneous types of information," Acting Captain Peter White with the fire department said.
"We had people saying everything from chemical spill to fire, so we really weren't too sure exactly what we had."
It was later determined that an empty plastic vial had fallen on a hot plate, sending smoke throughout the floor. Hospital officials initiated a so-called code brown.
"A code brown is when there has been a potential hazardous spill," Mount Sinai's Judith John said.
"So when that's called, the hospital locks down, the fans are stopped so that the fumes don't spread and we kick into high gear."
While that was going on, the hospital did not admit any new patients and visitors waited outside for close to two hours.
Mount Sinai has launched an investigation into the incident, trying to determine how the plastic vial managed to come in contact with the hot plate.
With a report from CTV's Desmond Brown
