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SALT LAKE CITY — When Tanya Delfin of Denver opened the cardboard box from St. George crafts store Wood Creations Dixie last Wednesday, she found the raw wood cutout she had ordered the week before.
But she also saw something she didn’t recognize — a large cylindrical container.
“I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, Tanya, did you order something you didn’t need?’” Delfin said.
She opened it and found a second cylinder, one that made it clear the container likely hadn’t come from any craft store. It said “biohazard.”
After looking at the enclosed documents, Delfin realized she was in possession of someone’s test for sexually transmitted diseases. “And we immediately were like, ‘OK, don’t touch anything,’” she said.
The tests, Delfin discovered, were taken in Moab and were supposed to be bound for a Salt Lake County laboratory operated by the Utah Department of Health. Delfin reached out to both Wood Creations and the Health Department, and neither was sure how the mixup could have occurred.
“Utah Public Health asked me, ‘Does it still have postage on it?’ I was like, ‘Yeah.’ And she’s like, ‘Well, just drop it in the mail and hopefully we’ll get it,’” Delfin said. She added some tape and put the tests back in the mail on Wednesday.
Delfin said she was concerned not only about the mixup, but what she said appeared to be a poorly sealed container.
“We could have contaminated those,” Delfin said, “and it could have been something so much more serious. They could have been harmful to anyone who got that package.”
Utah Department of Health spokesman Tom Hudachko said that based on photographs Delfin shared of the container, it appeared that whoever sent them followed the “usual protocol.”
“These containers are designed specifically to be shipped, so the possibility of contamination is low,” Hudachko said. “Also, the actual samples are in individual sealed containers within the shipping container.
“The lab figures it was probably an innocent mix-up at the post office.”
According to package tracking information, the box left St. George on Sept. 16 and arrived at a package sorting facility in Salt Lake City the same day. U.S. Postal Service spokesman Brian Sperry said it appears the package “may have broken open in processing in Salt Lake City” and that “a well-meaning employee mistakenly included the nearby lab container thinking it came from the same box and retaped it.”
“While we may never know exactly what happened with the package, we are reaching out to the customers involved to apologize, and we are addressing it with our employees,” Sperry said.
Delfin said the box she received did appear “beat up,” and possibly retaped.
She hopes the post office and Health Department can review their procedures to better protect patients’ personal information and public health.
