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NY bomb scare bank worker 'evacuates self'

Suspect package provokes brown trouser moment

A New York bank worker has admitted she "evacuated herself" as a precautionary measure during a bomb scare, the Wall Street Journal reports.

The alert began when a 6-inch by 3-inch white envelope turned up in the mailroom of Bank Hapoalim, near Rockefeller Center. Suspiciously, it was encased in bubblewrap, addressed to someone at the bank whose name was wrongly spelt, and offered no return address.

As "dozens of firefighters and police officers" surrounded the building, and the bomb squad moved in, the bank and "a few" floors above and below were cleared of people.

Although Diana David, an administrative assistant at a different financial establishment up on the seventh floor, evidently wasn't obliged to make her way to safety, she decided to err on the side of caution and "evacuated herself".

She insisted: "On Sept. 11 people were told to stay in place. A lot of people died because of it."

In the event, David could have spared herself an unnecessary evacuation. While an X-ray of the package showed "wires and a battery", it turned out to be an electronic greeting card from a headhunting firm. ®

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