A faculty physician was shot in a Johns Hopkins Hospital building this morning by a gunman who was allegedly angry about his mother's medical treatment, the Baltimore Sun reports. The shooter barricaded himself on the same floor and is apparently still at large, according to news reports.
The victim is being treated at Hopkins for serious, but not life-threatening injuries. A police spokesman says they have cornered the suspect, CNN reports.
Sections of the building on Hopkins' East Baltimore campus are under lockdown and other areas have been evacuated. Roads in the vicinity have been sealed off with trucks, cars and tape, the Sun reports. Police, fire and SWAT teams are on the scene.
The shooter had threatened to jump out of a window, a nurse who was on the floor at the time told the Baltimore Sun. After hearing gunshots, she ran.
Hopkins sent out emergency e-mail and texts to staff that alerted them to "shooter on Nelson 8." Employees across the street were told to remain in their offices.
"What is so difficult about active shooters in healthcare is that we don't have the ability to evacuate," Joseph Bellino, president of the International Association for Healthcare Security and Safety, told FierceHealthcare."You can't readily evacuate people who are really sick or intensive care patients. We can evacuate, but it's extremely difficult."
Bellino, who is also system executive for security at Memorial Hermann in Houston, Texas, notes that after Columbine, law enforcement's goal has been to stop the shooter either by disabling or killing him.
He offers this advice to hospital emergency preparedness staff: Dust off your books and review your policies and procedures. Make sure you have good plans in place to respond to something like this. "And communicate, communicate, communicate," he adds. "Have a general framework and be very nimble and be able to flex that plan so that as that event devleops, everybody is in sync. You've got to move very quickly."
Johns Hopkins Hospital has temporarily restricted access to the main hospital buildings following the shooting, according to the Hopkins press release. Baltimore police and Hopkins security officers have asked everyone from employees and caregivers to patients and visitors to stay in rooms or offices until further notice.
[Update: The man who shot the doctor later killed himself and his mother in a hospital room, according to Associated Press.]
To learn more:
- read the Baltimore Sun article
- here's the Associated Press story and a later update
- read the Wall Street Journal story