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ORANGE, Calif. — A woman who reported being ill dropped a mysterious substance on the floor of an emergency room on Friday, forcing the unit to shut down for several hours until tests confirmed it was only powdered Alfredo sauce.

A police officer responding to the scene also reported feeling sick when he came into contact with the substance at St. Joseph's Hospital, Orange Fire Capt. Ian MacDonald said.

The officer and the walk-in patient were quarantined and ambulances were diverted to other hospitals for about four hours while a hazardous-materials team tested the powder.

It turns out the contents of the bag were "an empty herbal vitamin package with residue still inside and powdered Alfredo sauce mix," MacDonald said.

Adams could not explain why investigators and the patient failed to communicate about what was in the plastic bag, but he said medical workers were evaluating her for mental health problems.

"We had certain red flags — an unknown subject walking into an emergency department with unknown substance. And after she was feeling ill, an officer felt ill. With that criteria, we were treating the incident as a worst-case scenario," MacDonald said. "It turned out to be a best-case scenario."

MacDonald said the patient and the officer were in good condition.

Police Sgt. Dan Adams said the officer who responded "didn't feel as ill as everyone thought he did. He just reported a sore throat."

CHESTER, Va. — Like many boys in the South, Sam White got hooked on the Civil War early, digging up rusting bullets and military buttons in the battle-scarred earth of his hometown.

As an adult, he crisscrossed the Virginia countryside in search of wartime relics — weapons, battle flags, even artillery shells buried in the red clay. He sometimes put on diving gear to feel for treasures hidden in the black muck of river bottoms.

But in February, White's hobby cost him his life: A cannonball he was restoring exploded, killing him in his driveway.

More than 140 years after Lee surrendered to Grant, the cannonball was still powerful enough to send a chunk of shrapnel through the front porch of a house a quarter-mile from White's home in this leafy Richmond suburb.

White's death shook the close-knit fraternity of relic collectors and raised concerns about the dangers of other Civil War munitions that lay buried beneath old battlefields. Explosives experts said the fatal blast defied extraordinary odds.

"You can't drop these things on the ground and make them go off," said retired Col. John F. Biemeck, formerly of the Army Ordnance Corps.

White, 53, was one of thousands of hobbyists who comb former battlegrounds for artifacts using metal detectors, pickaxes, shovels and trowels.

"There just aren't many areas in the South in which battlefields aren't located. They're literally under your feet," said Harry Ridgeway, a former relic hunter who has amassed a vast collection. "It's just a huge thrill to pull even a mundane relic out of the ground."

After growing up in Petersburg, White went to college, served on his local police force, then worked for 25 years as a deliveryman for UPS. He retired in 1998 and devoted most of his time to relic hunting.

He was an avid reader, a Civil War raconteur and an amateur historian who watched History Channel programs over and over, to the mild annoyance of his wife.

"I used to laugh at him and say, 'Why do you watch this? You know how it turned out. It's not going to be any different,"' Brenda White said.

She didn't share her husband's devotion, but she was understanding of his interest.

"True relic hunters who have this passion, they don't live that way vicariously, like if you were a sports fanatic," she said. "Finding a treasure is their touchdown, even if it's two, three bullets."

Union and Confederate troops lobbed an estimated 1.5 million artillery shells and cannonballs at each other from 1861 to 1865. As many as one in five were duds.

Some of the weapons remain buried in the ground or river bottoms. In late March, a 44-pound, 8-inch mortar shell was uncovered at Petersburg National Battlefield, the site of an epic 292-day battle. The shell was taken to the city landfill and detonated.

Black powder provided the destructive force for cannonballs and artillery shells. The combination of sulfur, potassium nitrate and finely ground charcoal requires a high temperature — 572 degrees Fahrenheit — and friction to ignite.

White estimated he had worked on about 1,600 shells for collectors and museums. On the day he died, he had 18 cannonballs lined up in his driveway to restore.

White's efforts seldom raised safety concerns. His wife and son Travis sometimes stood in the driveway as he worked.

"Sam knew his stuff, no doubt about it," said Jimmy Blankenship, historian-curator at the Petersburg battleground. "He did know Civil War ordnance."

An investigation by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms will not be complete until the end of May, but police who responded to the blast and examined shrapnel concluded that it came from a Civil War explosive.

Experts suspect White was killed while trying to disarm a 9-inch, 75-pound naval cannonball, a particularly potent explosive with a more complex fuse and many times the destructive power of those used by infantry artillery.

Biemeck and Peter George, co-author of a book on Civil War ordnance, believe White was using either a drill or a grinder attached to a drill to remove grit from the cannonball, causing a shower of sparks.

Because of the fuse design, it may have appeared as though the weapon's powder had already been removed, leading even a veteran like White to conclude mistakenly that the ball was inert.

The weapon also had to be waterproof because it was designed to skip over the water at 600 mph to strike at the waterline of an enemy ship. The protection against moisture meant the ball could have remained potent longer than an infantry shell.

Brenda White is convinced her husband was working on a flawed cannonball, and no amount of caution could have prevented his death.

"He had already disarmed the shell," she said. "From what I was told, there was absolutely nothing he had done wrong, that there was a manufacturing defect that no one would have known was there."

After White's death, about two dozen homes were evacuated for two days while explosives experts collected pieces from his collection and detonated them.

Today, there is little evidence of the Feb. 18 blast. The garage where White did most of his work is still crammed with his discoveries, many painstakingly restored and mounted. Rusted horseshoes are piled high in the crook of a small tree.

White's digging partner, Fred Lange, hasn't had the heart to return to his relic hunting.

"I truly miss him," Lange said. "Not a day that goes by that I don't think of him."

MADISON, Wis. — A college student apparently called 911 from her cell phone shortly before she was killed but a dispatcher hung up, failed to call back and never sent police to investigate, authorities said Thursday.

Madison Police Chief Noble Wray said it was too early to know whether a better response could have prevented the April 2 slaying of Wisconsin-Madison student Brittany Zimmermann or helped police capture her killer.

Authorities refused to release the content of the phone call, but Wray said it should have been enough for the Dane County 911 Center to take it seriously.

"It would be accurate to state that there is evidence contained in the call, which should have resulted in a Madison police officer being dispatched," Wray said at a news conference. "The 911 center did not call back to the telephone number, Madison police were not notified and no officer was sent."

Zimmermann, 21, was found slain in her apartment in an apparently random crime. Police believe someone broke into her apartment before killing her. They have not identified a suspect but have ruled out her fiance, who found her body in the apartment they shared.

Dane County Public Safety Communications Director Joseph Norwick said the dispatcher who received the call from Zimmermann's cell phone inquired several times to determine whether an emergency existed. The dispatcher hung up after receiving no answer and then answered another 911 call that was waiting, he said.


The dispatcher failed to call the number back as required under the department's policy, Norwick said.

Norwick said he was investigating the incident and reviewing whether policies should be changed and employees should be disciplined. But he also said, "I don't think there's anything to apologize for at this time."

Your computer keyboard could be dirtier than your toilet.

A study from Which? Computing in England has found some keyboards contained more bacteria than the average toilet seat.

Researchers took swabs from 30 office keyboards and uncovered a cocktail of bugs that can cause infection and illness.

Two contained staphylococcus aureus, which can lead to skin infections and food poisoning.

In one case, a microbiologist recommended that a keyboard should be removed as a precaution after finding bacteria readings "off the scale."

Microbiologist James Francis of Kingmoor Technological Services in Carlisle, England, said the contamination is largely due to a lack of proper lunch breaks.

"More and more people are eating at their desks and are transferring from hand to mouth all the time,” he said.” That is making things worse.”

"Telephones are also a problem. We have found a lot of pathogenic disease-causing bacteria on telephones in hotel rooms, for example. It is often down to common sense. If something looks grimy and horrible there is a good chance it is."

Jaclyn Clarabut, assistant editor at Which? Computing, told Sky News Online that people have to take responsibility for their office environment.

"People should use alcohol wipes to really get rid of the germs,” Clarabut said. “The best thing is to tip keyboards upside down and watch the crumbs fall out. Once that's gone, the bacteria stops growing.

"If people don't clean their keyboards regularly, they might as well eat lunch in the toilet."

Change in policies? No apology needed? How about apologizing for crappy policies?

Try this...

That police officer guy is such a drama queen! That's right, I said it.

This sounds like a dream death for a civil war enthusiast. He died the same way that his heroes did!

It's a sad world when even 911 operators don't take their jobs seriously.

Ohh, I have a Snapple cap somewhere in my room that says that your office deask has more germs than a toilet. I can't find it, though. I've had it for a few days, and I've been searching all over for it.