Arkansas Children's Hospital mistakenly sent out an active-shooter alert Tuesday but there was never any danger present, a hospital official said.
A critical alert about an active shooter was sent to hospital staff shortly before noon through text message and the hospital's computer system, hospital spokesman Hilary DeMillo said.
"It was sent out by accident," DeMillo said. "It was a completely and absolute false alarm. The area was never in danger."
DeMillo said employees were notified it was a false alarm within minutes.
"Today's false alarm was due to an error in managing a high volume of regional weather safety alerts," DeMillo said. "Arkansas Children's holds safety as a core value. We will process and review the situation through that lens."
Chanda Chacon, chief operating officer for Arkansas Children's health system, said in a released statement that personnel are trained to respond quickly to all emergency alerts.
"Our team followed our internal protocols," Chacon said. "We are already in the process of learning from this false alarm to ensure that we maintain the safest possible environments for our patients, families and team."
State Desk on 05/22/2019