Posted on 07/24/2014 6:59:15 PM PDT by BulletBobCo
DARBY, Pa. (TheBlaze/AP) — A psychiatrist who was grazed by gunfire from a patient at a suburban Philadelphia hospital Thursday helped stop the gunman by apparently using his own weapon to shoot and wound him, but not before a caseworker was killed, authorities said.
A patient opened fire after entering the doctor’s office at Mercy Fitzgerald Hospital with the caseworker, District Attorney Jack Whelan said. Witnesses reported hearing yelling before the gunshots.
A spokeswoman for Mercy Fitzgerald Hospital said the facility has a policy prohibiting anyone except on-duty law enforcement officers from carrying a weapon anywhere on its campus. It appears at the moment that the unnamed doctor decided to defy that policy in order to defend himself.
But Yeadon Police Chief Donald Molineux said that “without a doubt, I believe the doctor saved lives.”
“Without that firearm, this guy (the patient) could have went out in the hallway and just walked down the offices until he ran out of ammunition,” the chief said.
It wasn’t clear if the incident has the hospital reconsidering its policy against trained staff carrying concealed firearms.
Several hours after the shooting, investigators had only limited information about what happened inside the closed office but believe the psychiatrist, “from all accounts, would have acted in self-defense,” Whelan said.
The doctor, who suffered a wound to his head, “faced a situation where his life was in jeopardy,” Whelan said. He was expected to be interviewed by detectives late Thursday.
I’m with Balding_Eagle on this.
You’re posting on a forum, where you potentially have thousands of readers. Research shows that it’s easier to read text with proper capitalization, than it is to read text that ignores all the rules. What you’re saying is that your time saving (perhaps as much as a second, to do a couple of shift changes) is worth more than the time it costs hundreds, or thousands of your readers. Such unfounded arrogance!
Do what you will in private correspondence, or Tweets to your followers — but, if you’re posting on a public forum, you’re publishing. Most of us don’t know you well enough to know what an incredible wit you are — so, forgive us if we just think you’re either: (a)arrogant and inconsiderate; (b)ignorant of basic rules of grammar; (c)incredibly lazy — and if you’re a lazy typist, chances are you’re a lazy thinker; (d)trying to be hip and clever; or, (e)some combination of all of those things.
obviously you have not read the novel AIRPORT by arthur hailey. actually a decent movie too.
Very well said.
but i know you do like it. :-)
It's giving the reader the finger.
I see USFRIENDINVICTORIA was much more diplomatic.
Laws are laws, definitely jail time for the offender. If we let one go defending himself in a “gun free zone” then we’ll have to let everyone defend themselves.
Psychiatry is really changing. Freudian psychiatry is dying out. Many psychiatrists today are quite good. I’ve known several that were top notch.
One was a biochemical psychiatrist who would often spend six months adjusting medications for a challenging patient to help problems so rare they weren’t even mentioned in the textbooks.
Another was an “objective” psychiatrist with Sherlock Holmes style deductive ability. He diagnosed physical diseases that Internists and even specialists would miss. Impressive to watch, he diagnosed one woman after asking what she normally ate for breakfast, which turned out to be a rare and toxic foreign dish that she just loved and ate regularly, which was killing her.
You watched an ongoing diagnosis, over a six month period? By a “biochemical psychiatrist,” no less. Was he islamic, by chance of circumstance?
Of course not. Actually he was complaining that after all that work, a patient would go on a bender, which would so scramble their brain chemistry that it would set them back months. He then went into an extended rant against alcohol.
Importantly, this was in the 1980s, in which the number of medicines available was just a fraction of the number in use today. And some were “shotgun” solutions to “BB gun” problems, but were desperately needed. So a lot of it was experiment and guess work.
“He’ll get fired. Should have used his panic button.”
Maybe, but he’s still alive to seek employment elsewhere.
Brain chemistry, aside- the book of Alcoholics Anonymous was written by people, that have done more for the “benders”, than anyone in oral or written history. Apparently, a spiritual recovery is foremost- in realigning a healthy physical/mental condition.
she was eating fugu?
wow, what some people feel they must read into stuff.
A good example of why such idiotic policies aren't worth the toilet paper they're written on.
but i know you do like it. :-)
A spiritual recovery is great, but if you have an organic imbalance in your neurochemistry, psychological and physical stuff can happen that is very dramatic. Making it worse is that it is very interactive with your hormones and immune system.
But you haven’t. Instead you’ve been shown another way to give someone the written finger.
Well...thanks. 8^)
:-)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.