Package of Dead Rats Leads to Fla. Fire Department Callout

Dec. 21--WEST PALM BEACH _ The dead rats arrive from Africa three times a year, 200 per shipment, dehydrated and packaged on sticks in a cardboard box at the post office on Summit Boulevard.

For 10 years, every shipment made it without incident to the address labeled on the box, Jorge Castillo's religious artifacts store at Forest Hill Boulevard and Georgia Avenue, where the dehydrated oketes _ wild jungle rats from Nigeria _ are sold for $50 each for use in spiritual ceremonies.

That changed Friday night, when Castillo's latest shipment set off an unusual chain of events that shut down the post office, hospitalized two postal workers and attracted the bomb squad and hazmat team from West Palm Beach.

"I have been in business 15 years and this is the first problem I have ever had,'' Castillo said Saturday, still searching for answers about the handling of the incident.

The fire rescue department doesn't think Castillo had any problem at all. Officials are not sure what caused the postal workers to get sick, but they suspect their reaction might have been related to the recent Ebola virus scare, spokesman Allan Ortman said.

"There was nothing in there that would make people sick. So we can't explain why they got sick,'' Ortman said.

The incident started late Friday afternoon at the post office. Someone didn't necessarily smell a rat, but they apparently smelled something foul near the package bound for Castillo's store.

"I was at my son's martial arts class and the post office called me: 'You've got to pick up your package because it smells,' '' Castillo said in comments translated by his assistant manager, Luis Chamizo.

Castillo said he thought it was strange when he arrived at the post office and saw the workers wearing face masks and gloves as they handed him the package at a side entrance.

"They said the package was leaking, but the package comes dry,'' Castillo said. "They even went so far as to mention they were worried about the Ebola virus.''

He said he took the box home, where he and co-workers removed each okete and wrapped them in green plastic. Half the rats go to a store Castillo owns in Miami and the other 100 go to his West Palm Beach store, where they are preserved in a stand-up freezer in a back room.

But as they were wrapping the rats, Castillo's phone rang again. This time, it was the West Palm Beach Fire department, whose crews had already briefly evacuated the post office and were now outside his store preparing to evacuate two other nearby shops.

"They told me to come down to the shop because there were three people sick at the post office who were hospitalized and they were going to the door and going into my shop,'' Castillo said.

(Ortman said two people reported being sick, with one patient going to JFK Medical Center and the other to Palms West. "They were fine," he said.)

Castillo arrived and saw the small shopping center lit up by blinking lights from rescue vehicles and crews wearing white hazmat suits.

"Everybody was panicking,'' he said. "I thought (Osama) Bin Ladin was here and alive.''

Firefighters asked Castillo for the package. "I said, 'The package is at his house. We already picked it up,' '' Chamizo said. "And then everybody stepped back. They didn't want to touch us.''

Before Castillo arrived at his shop, the bomb squad had removed the door to the store and sent in a robot to retrieve a box, assuming it was the package from Africa. But the box the robot pulled out contained packets of corn starch.

"It was not right what they did. They violated my rights and my business rights,'' he said.

Castillo paid $300 to have his door repaired, a bill he wants the city to pay. He also wants answers from the post office and the city about the way they handled the incident.

He said every international shipment he receives must pass through Customs. And if the package was making postal workers feel sick, he said the post office should not have released it to him.

"Why didn't they detain the package and call the police to investigate?'' he asked. "They let me take it home to my house, and my wife and three kids were all home.''

The post office could not be reached for comment Saturday. Ortman said public safety officials followed normal procedures when reacting to a suspicious package from a place where people reported feeling ill.

Castillo said the rats are a popular seller for his customers, including priests and others seeking help with spiritual and health ailments.

In fact, when he picked up his latest shipment Friday night, he told the masked postal workers to keep an eye out in the next month or two.

"Another one is on the way."

Copyright 2014 - The Palm Beach Post, Fla.