Would-be smoker who caused hospital flood headed to prison
A York City man must go to prison for flooding part of York Hospital when he decided to sneak a smoke and tried to disable what he thought was a bathroom smoke detector.
Instead, Steve Eugene Mummert set off the bathroom's sprinkler system, flooding part of the third floor of the hospital's South Tower, York City Police said.
On May 16, Mummert was visiting a friend who was a patient in the hospital, when he ducked into the bathroom in her room to smoke a cigarette, then caused the flooding, police said.
"In some spots the water was over the tips of my boots," city Officer Sheldon Hooper wrote in Mummert's arrest affidavit.
When Hooper arrived at Room 312, Mummert had oil covering his face, his affidavit states. The oil was from inside the water line that's connected to the automatic sprinkler's head unit, police said.
Heard 'pop': The affidavit alleges Mummert was visiting patient Samantha Potter when he told her he needed to use the bathroom. He was in the bathroom about five minutes when Potter heard a loud pop, police said.
Potter told officers that when Mummert opened the bathroom door, water began to pour out, the affidavit states. Potter pressed her patient "help" button and saw Mummert throw a box cutter in a trash can, police said.
Mummert, 46, of the 1200 block of East Prospect Street, told responding officers he wanted to disable the bathroom's smoke detector so he didn't get in trouble for smoking a cigarette there, according to the affidavit. He didn't realize the smoke detector was actually the sprinkler unit until water started spraying out of it, police said.
Ten patient rooms sustained water damage from the flooding, but the damage was minimal, hospital spokesman Barry Sparks said at the time.
Mummert pleaded guilty Feb. 4 to risking a catastrophe, criminal mischief and tampering with fire apparatus. On Tuesday, he was sentenced to three to 12 months in prison, court records state.
Assault conviction: But because of a second, unrelated case, Mummert will be spending more than three years in state prison.
On Jan. 12, he was found guilty of aggravated assault for an incident at the Flamingo Hotel, 3600 E. Market St. in Springettsbury Township.
For that, he was sentenced Tuesday to 3½ to seven years in state prison, according to court records.
Springettsbury Township Police said Mummert was in Room No.7 about 7:30 p.m. May 13 with victim Brady Traversie, 42, of the York area.
The two men had been drinking together for several hours when a play fight between them turned real, charging document state.
Mummert beat Traversie into unconsciousness, then continued to pummel him, causing Traversie's head to repeatedly bounce off the ground, documents state.
At York Hospital, Traversie was placed in a medically induced coma because of the amount of facial trauma he suffered, according to documents, which also state the attack left him with weakness in his lower extremities.
Defense attorney Scott Lineberry did not return a phone message seeking comment.
- Reach Elizabeth Evans at levans@yorkdispatch.com, 505-5429 or twitter.com/ydcrimetime.
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