Penylvania’s shooting highlights violence against US hospital workers

By Mead Gruver, Associated Press

A man who He took hospital in a hospital in Pennsylvania During a shooting that killed a police officer and injured five other people, highlights the growing violence against health workers in the United States and the challenge of protecting them.

Diogenes Archangel-Ortiz, 49, took a gun and strips to the Intensive Care Unit at the UPMC Memorial Hospital in the southern York County of Pennsylvania and took personnel members as hostages on Saturday before they kill him In a shooting with the police, authorities said. The attack also left a doctor, nurse, custodian and two other wounded officers.

The officers opened fire when the Archangel-Oortiz contained at the tip of the gun as a member of the female staff whose hands had been tied with zipper, police said.

The man apparently attacked the hospital after he was in contact with the Intensive Care Unit at the beginning of the week for medical care that involves another person, according to the York County District Prosecutor.

Such violence in hospitals is often increasing in emergency departments, but also in maternity rooms and intensive care units, said hospital security consultant Dick SEM.

“Many people are more confrontative, faster to get angry, faster to be threatening,” said SEM. “I interview thousands of nurses and listen to all the time on how they are being abused every day.”

The reasons of Archangel-Ortiz were not clear, but nurses report that the increase in the public’s harassment, especially after the Coronavirus pandemic, said SEM, former director of Safety and Crisis Management for Waste Management and Vice President of Pinkerton /Securitas.

In hospital attacks, unlike the random mass shootings in other places, the shooter often points to someone, sometimes resentful of the attention he gave to a relative who died, said SEM.

“It tends to be someone who is angry with someone,” said SEM. “It can be a situation of domestic violence or employees, former employees. There are all kinds of variables. “

In Wellspan Health, a nearby hospital where they took some of the victims, Megan Foltz said he was worried about violence since he began working as a nurse almost 20 years ago.

“In the critical care environment, of course, there will be high emotions. People are losing loved ones. There may be gang violence, domestic violence. Drunk individuals, ”said Foltz.

In addition to the fear of being hurt, nurses fear to leave their patients without guard.

“If you move away from a bed to run, hide, to keep you safe, leave your patient vulnerable,” he said.

Employees of Medical Care and Social Assistance suffered almost three quarters of non -fatal attacks against workers in the private sector in 2021 and 2022 for a rate more than five times the national average, according to the US Labor Statistics Office.

Other recent attacks against United States health workers include:

• Last year, a man fired two corrections officers In the ambulance bay of a Idaho hospital while he releases a member of the White Supreme Gang before he could be returned to prison. They were trapped less than two days later.
• In 2023, an armed man killed a security guard and wounded a hospital worker in a Portland maternity unit, Oregon, before being killed by the police in a confrontation elsewhere. Also in 2023, a man Open fire In a waiting room at the Medical Center in Atlanta, killing a woman and hurting four.
• In 2022, an armed man He killed his surgeon and three other people In a medical office in Tulsa, Oklahoma, because he blamed the doctor for his continuous pain after an operation. Later that year, a man He killed two workers in a Dallas hospital while there to see the birth of your child.

The shooting is part of a armed violence In recent years, that has spread through American hospitals and medical centers, who have fought to adapt to growing threats.

With the increase in violence, more hospitals are using metal detectors and examination of threat visitors at hospital entries, including emergency departments.

Many hospital workers say after an attack that they never expected to be attacked.

SEM said the training can be critical to help medical staff identify those who could become violent.

“More than half of these incidents that I know showed some early warning signs of the first indicators that this person is problematic. They are threatening, they are angry. And that should be informed. That needs to be managed, ”he said.

“If nobody reports it, then you don’t know it until the weapon appears.”

Associated Press’s writer Chris Weber contributed to this Los Angeles report.

Originally published: February 24, 2025 at 6:36 am PST