Hospital Rat Mistaken for Pokémon

CHICAGO, IL – Northwestern University Hospital had a false alarm Saturday, where several employees mistook a hospital rat for a rare Pokémon.  “I was so excited when I saw him,” said OR scrub tech Ryan Hilligas.  “I messaged everyone I knew letting them know there was a rare Pokémon over here.”

The false alarm occurred in the sub-sterile, where most of the sterile surgical equipment is stored.

“How could I have been so careless?” Ryan told reporters.  “I wasted like 12 Pokéballs until I realized, oh, its just a hospital rat.”  Ryan then grabbed his supplies for the operation and headed back to OR 8.  “I thought I caught a rare Pokémon but it was just the rat again,” he told the OR, as the anesthesiologist and surgeon both let out an empathetic sigh.

Later that day a nurse on 4 west, the hospital’s telemetry unit, had another scare.  “My heart had a short pause, I knew I didn’t have this Pokémon in my Pokédex.  I calmly threw a Pokéball but he scurried off.  I had no idea it wasn’t a Pokémon until I heard multiple other people couldn’t catch it either.”  She continued, “As with everything around here it was too good to be true.”

“In retrospect it looked so real and disgustingly ugly,” Ryan said.  “Maybe if I would take my eyes off my phone for 2 seconds I would have figured it out right away.”

Fortunately the rat has not been spotted in anyone’s lungs or rectum.

Need some help finding some Pokémon?  Try here:

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