The hostage situation and shooting at a Pennsylvania hospital, which resulted in the death of a police officer and injuries to five others, underscores the increasing danger faced by healthcare workers in the U.S. and the difficulty in ensuring their safety.
According to authorities, Diogenes Archangel-Ortiz, 49, entered the intensive care unit at UPMC Memorial Hospital in York County, southern Pennsylvania, on Saturday with a pistol and zip ties. He took hospital staff hostage before being killed in a police shootout. A doctor, nurse, custodian, and two police officers were also injured in the incident.
Police reported that officers fired their weapons while Archangel-Ortiz held a female staff member at gunpoint, with her hands restrained by zip ties.
The York County district attorney stated that the man appeared to have specifically targeted the hospital, having previously been in contact with the intensive care unit earlier in the week regarding medical care for someone else.
Hospital security consultant Dick Sem noted that violence in hospitals is becoming more frequent, occurring not only in emergency rooms but also in maternity wards and intensive care units.
Sem stated, “Many people are more confrontational, quicker to become angry, quicker to become threatening. I interview thousands of nurses and hear all the time about how they’re being abused every day.”
While Archangel-Ortiz’s motives are still unknown, Sem, former director of security and crisis management for Waste Management and vice president at Pinkerton/Securitas, mentioned that nurses are reporting increased harassment from the public, especially since the coronavirus pandemic.
Sem pointed out that, unlike random mass shootings, hospital attacks often involve the shooter targeting a specific individual, sometimes due to resentment over the care given to a deceased relative.
Sem said, “It tends to be someone who’s mad at somebody. It might be a domestic violence situation or employees, ex-employees. There’s all kinds of variables.”
Megan Foltz, a nurse at WellSpan Health, a nearby hospital where some victims were treated, stated that she has been concerned about violence since she began her nursing career nearly 20 years ago.
Foltz said, “In the critical care environment, of course there’s going to be heightened emotions. People are losing loved ones. There can be gang violence, domestic violence. Inebriated individuals.”
Nurses also worry about leaving their patients unattended in addition to the risk of personal injury.
She stated, “If you step away from a bedside to run, to hide, to keep safe, you’re leaving your patient vulnerable.”
According to the , healthcare and social assistance employees experienced nearly three-quarters of nonfatal workplace assaults in the private sector during 2021 and 2022, a rate more than five times the national average.
Other recent attacks on U.S. healthcare workers include:
- Last year, a man shot two corrections officers in the ambulance bay of an Idaho hospital while freeing a white supremacist gang member before he could be returned to prison. They were caught less than two days later.
- In 2023, a gunman killed a security guard and wounded a hospital worker in a Portland, Oregon, hospital’s maternity unit before being killed by police in a confrontation elsewhere. Also in 2023, a man opened fire in a medical center waiting room in Atlanta, killing one woman and wounding four.
- In 2022, a gunman killed his surgeon and three other people at a Tulsa, Oklahoma, medical office because he blamed the doctor for his continuing pain after an operation. Later that year, a man killed two workers at a Dallas hospital while there to watch his child’s birth.
The shooting is part of a recent surge in gun violence affecting U.S. hospitals and medical centers, which are struggling to adapt to these increasing threats.
In response to the rising violence, more hospitals are implementing measures such as metal detectors and visitor screening at entrances, including emergency departments.
Many hospital workers express surprise at being targeted after an attack.
Sem emphasized that training can be vital in enabling medical staff to recognize potentially violent individuals.
He said, “More than half of these incidents I’m aware of showed some early warning signs from early indicators that this person is problematic. They’re threatening, they’re angry. And so that needs to be reported. That needs to be managed.”
“If nobody reports it, then you don’t know until the gun appears.”
—Associated Press writer Chris Weber contributed to this report from Los Angeles.
