Doctor kills one, wounds six in hospital rampage
NEW YORK: A doctor who lost his job at a hospital opened fire with a rifle in the building on Friday, killing another physician and wounding six other people.
The gunman, wearing a white medical lab coat, stalked two floors of the Bronx-lebanon Hospital Centre, in the New York borough of the Bronx, and tried to set himself on fire before police found him dead of a self-inflicted gunshot, Police Commissioner James O’neill said.
Mayor Bill de Blasio characterised the shooting as an “isolated incident” that appeared to be “workplace-related”. He said it was not an act of terrorism.
“This is a horrific situation unfolding in the middle of a place that people associate with care and comfort,” De Basio said.
O’neill said the gunman was a former employee of the 972-bed hospital.
Bronx borough president Ruben Diaz identified the gunman as Dr Henry Bello and said he had been fired by the hospital. Other reports described Bello as a 45-year-old physician who specialised in family medicine.
Authorities said the rampage unfolded before 3pm when the gunman went on a shooting rampage on the 16th and 17th floors of the hospital. He and the dead physician were found on the 17th floor and the other victims on the 16th, O’neill said. The incident created panic in the hospital.
“People were running. People were afraid,” said Jane Vachara, a clerical associate, who huddled with colleagues in a bathroom for an hour. “I feel terrible, I feel scared. I just want to get home and see my daughter.”
Adding to the pandemonium was the gunman’s attempt to set himself ablaze, which apparently triggered the hospital’s fire alarm system and halted lift service, hampering efforts by rescuers to reach victims and evacuate the building.
An ambulance worker, Robert Maldonado, said he and his partner were forced to carry a bleeding patient down nine flights of stairs to safety, applying pressure to the man’s wound on the way down.
The wounded were taken to the hospital’s emergency room for treatment, O’neill said.
“Even in the midst of his horror, there were many, many acts of heroism,” De Blasio said.
“All of the personnel at Bronxlebanon Hospital, whose day went from normal to horrifying in a matter of seconds – the doctors the nurses, all the personnel, responded with extraordinary bravery, cool professionalism. They protected each other. They protected their patients.”
Bronx-lebanon Hospital Centre, about 1.6km north of Yankee Stadium, is the largest voluntary, non-profit health-care system serving the South and Central Bronx, as well as one of the city’s biggest providers of outpatient services. – Reuters