Officers from at least four separate public security branches, cordoned several blocks near a Bellingham medical office building Thursday morning in response to an emergency call about a man carrying an assault rifle. To everyone's relief the grave situation turned out to be a case of mistaken identity, after it appeared that the woman who had called a 911 dispatcher had falsely identified the prosthetic leg as an assault rifle.

According to police, the woman called 911 to report of a man entering the Chestnut Professional Building with an assault rifle.

Soon after officers from Bellingham Police, the Whatcom County Sheriff's Office, Western Washington University Police and Washington State Patrol responded to the scene. However, even after a floor-to-floor search and an air patrol nothing could be found.

It was only when the police evacuated the building that the woman who called in the emergency spotted the office worker who was actually carrying a prosthetic leg.

"Everyone did everything right ... they allowed us to do our job," Deputy Chief David Doll of Bellingham Police Department told of the incident to the Bellingham Herald. "Like we hoped, it turned out go be a good situation today."

The Chestnut Professional Building houses several offices including Whatcom Alliance for Healthcare Access, St. Joseph Hospital Foundation and Whatcom Hospice Foundation, among others.