LONG BEACH : Bomb Threat Forces Hospital Evacuation

One heart surgery was briefly interrupted and about 35 patients, including 11 pregnant women, were evacuated from the north and west wings of Long Beach Memorial Medical Center on Monday while police checked out a “suspicious device” that looked like a bomb.

Patients, employees and visitors from several areas, including labor and delivery , were moved to other parts of the hospital until authorities established that the suspected bomb was bogus, said hospital spokesman Ron Yukelson. One patient undergoing heart surgery was moved but was never endangered, Yukelson said.

The make-believe bomb--a box with a ticking clock strapped on top--was found by two men in a bathroom of the outpatient surgery area around 1 p.m. “Our father found it,” said Wanda Pearson of her father, Lucien White. “He was here for foot surgery. . . . I said: ‘Dad, you will do anything to get out of surgery.’ ”