A person who took hostages in a Pennsylvania hospital throughout a capturing that killed a police officer and wounded 5 different individuals highlights the rising violence in opposition to U.S. healthcare staff and the problem of defending them.
Diogenes Archangel-Ortiz, 49, carried a pistol and zip ties into the intensive care unit at UPMC Memorial Hospital in southern Pennsylvania’s York County and took employees members hostage Saturday earlier than he was killed in a shootout with police, officers stated. The assault additionally left a physician, nurse, custodian and two different officers wounded.
Officers opened hearth as Archangel-Ortiz held at gunpoint a feminine employees member whose fingers had been zip-tied, police stated.
The person apparently deliberately focused the hospital after he was involved with the intensive care unit earlier within the week for medical care involving another person, based on the York County district legal professional.
Such violence at hospitals is on the rise, usually in emergency departments but additionally maternity wards and intensive care items, hospital safety marketing consultant Dick Sem stated.
“Many individuals are extra confrontational, faster to grow to be offended, faster to grow to be threatening,” Sem stated. “I interview 1000’s of nurses and listen to on a regular basis about how they’re being abused daily.”
Archangel-Ortiz’s motives remained unclear however nurses report rising harassment from the general public, particularly following the coronavirus pandemic, stated Sem, former director of safety and disaster administration for Waste Administration and vice chairman at Pinkerton/Securitas.
In hospital assaults, in contrast to random mass shootings elsewhere, the shooter is usually focusing on anyone, generally resentful in regards to the care given a relative who died, Sem famous.
“It tends to be somebody who’s mad at anyone,” Sem stated. “It is likely to be a home violence state of affairs or staff, ex-employees. There’s all types of variables.”
At WellSpan Well being, a close-by hospital the place a few of the victims had been taken, Megan Foltz stated she has been apprehensive about violence since she started working as a nurse almost 20 years in the past.
“Within the essential care atmosphere, in fact there’s going to be heightened feelings. Persons are shedding family members. There could be gang violence, home violence. Inebriated people,” Foltz stated.
Moreover the worry of being harm themselves, nurses worry leaving their sufferers unguarded.
“Should you step away from a bedside to run, to cover, to maintain protected, you’re leaving your affected person susceptible,” she stated.
Healthcare and social help staff suffered virtually three-quarters of nonfatal assaults on staff within the personal sector in 2021 and 2022 for a charge greater than 5 occasions the nationwide common, based on the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Different current assaults on U.S. healthcare staff embrace:
- Final yr, a person shot two corrections officers within the ambulance bay of an Idaho hospital whereas liberating a white supremacist gang member earlier than he may very well be returned to jail. They had been caught lower than two days later.
- In 2023, a gunman killed a security guard and wounded a hospital employee in a Portland, Oregon, hospital’s maternity unit earlier than being killed by police in a confrontation elsewhere. Additionally in 2023, a person opened fire in a medical heart ready room in Atlanta, killing one girl and wounding 4.
- In 2022, a gunman killed his surgeon and three other people at a Tulsa, Oklahoma, medical workplace as a result of he blamed the physician for his persevering with ache after an operation. Later that yr, a person killed two workers at a Dallas hospital whereas there to observe his youngster’s start.
The capturing is a part of a wave of gun violence lately that has swept by means of U.S. hospitals and medical facilities, which have struggled to adapt to the rising threats.
With rising violence, extra hospitals are utilizing metallic detectors and screening guests for threats at hospital entrances together with emergency departments.
Many hospital staff say after an assault that they by no means anticipated to be focused.
Sem stated coaching could be essential in serving to medical employees determine those that would possibly grow to be violent.
“Greater than half of those incidents I’m conscious of confirmed some early warning indicators from early indicators that this individual is problematic. They’re threatening, they’re offended. And in order that must be reported. That must be managed,” he stated.
“If no person studies it, then you definitely don’t know till the gun seems.”
Photograph: Linda Shields leaves flowers in entrance of the West York Police Division after a police officer was killed responding to a capturing at UPMC Memorial Hospital in York. (AP Photograph/Matt Rourke)
Copyright 2025 Related Press. All rights reserved. This materials might not be revealed, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Subjects
USA
Pennsylvania
A very powerful insurance coverage information,in your inbox each enterprise day.
Get the insurance coverage business’s trusted publication
