Someone tampered with the oxygen supply at UCHealth’s University of Colorado Hospital in Aurora earlier this month, but the facility was able to quickly switch to a backup supply before any patients got hurt.
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The Sept. 3 incident, first reported by Colorado Public Radio, involved someone who got into an oxygen storage area outside the hospital and “intentionally disrupted” it, UCHealth spokesman Dan Weaver said Monday.
The hospital has alarms for drops in oxygen pressure and was able to make the switch to a different large tank before levels reached the danger zone, he said. Individual tanks are also available throughout the hospital.
The incident report from CU police said they received a call from Pal American Security at about 3:30 a.m. Sept. 3, roughly two hours after someone turned off the oxygen. Security personnel said the hospital had just notified them about continuously falling oxygen levels at that point.
Surveillance video showed an unknown person jumping the fence around the large oxygen tanks and leaving within two minutes, leading security to speculate they “must have known what they were doing,” according to the police report.
The video wasn’t clear enough to identify the person’s sex or provide a description, beyond that they were wearing long pants and a long-sleeved shirt, both in dark gray.
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Neither police nor medical officials have released any information about why someone might have wanted to sabotage the oxygen flow to an 831-bed hospital.
CU police on Monday said the investigation is ongoing, but confirmed they have a suspect. The hospital and the public aren’t at risk going forwed, they said.
Hospital officials have not said how many patients were using supplemental oxygen that day.
The suspect isn’t a hospital employee and didn’t receive help to access the oxygen supply, Weaver said.
UCHealth has increased security around oxygen storage since the Sept. 3 incident.
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This is a developing story and may be updated.
