A man who during a shooting that killed a police officer and wounded five other people highlights the rising violence against U.S. healthcare workers and the challenge of protecting 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 staff members hostage Saturday before he was killed in a shootout with police, officials said. The attack also left a doctor, nurse, custodian and two other officers wounded.
Officers opened fire as Archangel-Ortiz held at gunpoint a female staff member whose hands had been zip-tied, police said.
The man apparently intentionally targeted the hospital after he was in contact with the intensive care unit earlier in the week for medical care involving someone else, according to the York County district attorney.
Such violence at hospitals is on the rise, often in emergency departments but also maternity wards and intensive care units, hospital security consultant Dick Sem said.
鈥淢any people are more confrontational, quicker to become angry, quicker to become threatening,鈥� Sem said. 鈥淚 interview thousands of nurses and hear all the time about how they鈥檙e being abused every day.鈥�
Archangel-Ortiz鈥檚 motives remained unclear but nurses report increasing harassment from the public, especially following the coronavirus pandemic, said Sem, former director of security and crisis management for Waste Management and vice president at Pinkerton/Securitas.
In hospital attacks, unlike random mass shootings elsewhere, the shooter is often targeting somebody, sometimes resentful about the care given a relative who died, Sem noted.
鈥淚t tends to be someone who鈥檚 mad at somebody,鈥� Sem said. 鈥淚t might be a domestic violence situation or employees, ex-employees. There鈥檚 all kinds of variables.鈥�
At WellSpan Health, a nearby hospital where some of the victims were taken, Megan Foltz said she has been worried about violence since she began working as a nurse nearly 20 years ago.
鈥淚n the critical care environment, of course there鈥檚 going to be heightened emotions. People are losing loved ones. There can be gang violence, domestic violence. Inebriated individuals,鈥� Foltz said.
Besides the fear of being hurt themselves, nurses fear leaving their patients unguarded.
鈥淚f you step away from a bedside to run, to hide, to keep safe, you鈥檙e leaving your patient vulnerable,鈥� she said.
Healthcare and social assistance employees suffered almost three-quarters of nonfatal attacks on workers in the private sector in 2021 and 2022 for a rate more than five times the national average, according to the .
Other recent attacks on U.S. healthcare workers include:
鈥� Last year, a man 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.
鈥� In 2023, a gunman 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 in a medical center waiting room in Atlanta, killing one woman and wounding four.
鈥� In 2022, a gunman at a Tulsa, Oklahoma, medical office because he blamed the doctor for his continuing pain after an operation. Later that year, a man while there to watch his child鈥檚 birth.
The shooting is part of a in recent years that has swept through U.S. hospitals and medical centers, which have struggled to adapt to the growing threats.
With rising violence, more hospitals are using metal detectors and screening visitors for threats at hospital entrances including emergency departments.
Many hospital workers say after an attack that they never expected to be targeted.
Sem said training can be critical in helping medical staff identify those who might become violent.
鈥淢ore than half of these incidents I鈥檓 aware of showed some early warning signs from early indicators that this person is problematic. They鈥檙e threatening, they鈥檙e angry. And so that needs to be reported. That needs to be managed,鈥� he said.
"If nobody reports it, then you don't know until the gun appears."
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Associated Press writer Chris Weber contributed to this report from Los Angeles.
Mead Gruver, The Associated Press
