2 victims of N.Y. hospital rampage remain in critical condition

NEW YORK — Dr. Tracy SinYee Tam was making her rounds at Bronx-Lebanon Hospital Center Friday morning when she walked into a 16th-floor examination room to ask after an older patient.

Mary Darko, a nurse who was tending to the patient at the time, said Tam had been as friendly as ever.

Several hours later, Darko heard something slam.

“Go and hide! Go and hide!” a doctor screamed. Darko hid in a bathroom. When she came out, a Bronx hospital had been turned into a corridor of horrors.

And Tam had been fatally shot in the chest, killed by a disgruntled doctor armed with an AR-15 rifle who struck seven people before using the weapon to end his life. The rampage set the hospital on a race to treat its own, even as the gunman continued to pump bullets into crowded hallways.

A medical student who was shot in the head suffered a grievous brain injury. Another bullet bored into the liver of a secondyear resident in family medicine. There were more gunshot wounds, all of them severe — to a gastrointestinal fellow’s hand, a medical student’s abdomen and a medical resident’s neck.

By Saturday, two victims — those with the brain and liver injuries — remained in critical condition, while the rest had been stabilized. The victim with the liver wound was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan for specialized surgery. The victim with the head wound was expected to remain at Bronx-Lebanon.

Tam, 32, who police said lived in Jamaica, Queens, appeared from online records also to have worked at a family medical center in the Bronx.

By Saturday morning, investigators had cleared the 16th floor and were letting hospital workers begin the long process of cleaning up. Blood was splattered on the floor and computers showed damage caused by a fire set by the suspect, Dr. Henry Bello, as he tried to kill himself. The hospital’s 17th floor remained an active crime scene, and part of the 15th floor also had been closed off.

The 11th floor was designated for victims’ families to wait and grieve.