A man took hostages at Pennsylvania Hospital during a shooting that killed a police officer, and five other people were wounded, highlighting the increasing violence against American health care workers and challenging their protection.
Officials said Diognes Arhangel-Ortiz, 49, carried a pistol and links to the intensive care unit at UPMC Memorial Hospital in York County in the south of Pennsylvania and the employees took into account on Saturday before killing in an exchange with the police. The attack also left a doctor, nurse, guardian and other officers who were injured.
Police said that the officers opened the fire while detaining the chief of angels-at the forefront of the distance, a female employee whose hands were compressed.
It seems that the man has purposefully targeted the hospital after he was in contact with the intensive care unit earlier this week to obtain medical care that includes another person, according to York County lawyer.
Dick Sim, hospital security advisor, said that such violence in hospitals is high, often in emergency departments, as well as maternity wings and intensive care units.
“Many people are more confronted, faster in anger, and faster to become a threat,” Sim said. “I meet thousands of nurses and I hear all the time about how they offended their treatment every day.”
SEM, the former director of the security and crisis management department for waste management and vice president at Pinkeston/Securitas.
In hospital attacks, unlike random mass shootings elsewhere, the shooter often targets a person, and sometimes absorbs the care granted to the relatives of Matt.
Sim said: “He tends to be an angry person from someone.” “Home violence or employees, and former employees may be. There are all kinds of variables.”
At Wellspan Health, a nearby hospital, some victims have been transferred, Megan Volz said she was concerned about violence since she started working as a nurse about 20 years ago.
“In the critical care environment, of course there will be increasing feelings. People lose their loved ones. There can be gang violence and domestic violence. Volz said:
Besides fear that they will harm themselves, the nurses fear that their patients are left without guarding.
And she said: “If you move away from one of the beds to run, to hide, to keep her safety, you leave your patient weak.”
Health care and social assistance staff suffered nearly three quarters of non -deadly attacks on workers in the private sector in 2021 and 2022 at a rate of more than five times the national average, according to what he said. American work statistics office.
Other recent attacks on American health care workers include:
- Last year, a man shot two officers for corrections at the Gulf Bay at Idahu Hospital while he was edited to a white gang member before returning to prison. They were arrested after less than two days.
- In 2023, a security guard was killed and wounded at a hospital in Portland, Oregon, the mother -in -law in the hospital before the police killed her in a confrontation elsewhere. Also in 2023, a man of fire in a waiting room opened a medical center in Atlanta, killing a woman and wounding four.
- In 2022, a gunman killed his wounds and three other people in Tolsa, Oklahoma, the medical office because he blamed the doctor for his continuation after the operation. Later that year, a man working at Dallas Hospital was killed while he was there to see the birth of his child.
The shooting is part of a wave of armed violence in recent years that have swept American hospitals and medical centers, which have struggled to adapt to the increasing threats.
With the high violence, more hospitals use metal detection devices and visit visitors to threats at hospital entrances, including emergency departments.
Many hospital workers say after an attack they did not expect to target them.
SEM said that training could be it is very important in helping the medical staff to identify those who may become violent.
“More than half of these incidents have shown some signs of early warning from early indicators that this person is a problem. They threaten, they are angry. This must be reported. This must be managed.”
“If no one will reach, you do not know until the gun appears.”
Chris Weber, a journalist associated with this report from Los Angeles.
