A “decontamination tent” was set up at St Thomas’ Hospital’s A&E on Saturday after two people on a motorbike pelted pedestrians with powder from a fire extinguisher.
The two unknown culprits threw the previously-unknown substance over pedestrians in Walworth Road, Grove Vale and Old Kent Road, between 6:30am and 8:30am.
Police told the News that three separate incidents were initially treated as potential chemical attacks, until it was later confirmed that that the material thrown at a number of pedestrians was “powder discharged from a fire extinguisher”.
One of the victims was a member of staff at the hospital. She was assessed and found not to have been injured.
A statement from the hospital said: “The substance was treated as a potentially hazardous material so we implemented our standard decontamination processes as a precaution.
“This included erecting a decontamination tent and cordoning off the area where decontamination takes place to avoid cross contamination. The tent was taken down later that morning and the substance was found to be harmless.”
Police confirmed that no arrests were made.