2 nurses, physician stabbed at California hospital

The following is an excerpt from Becker's Hospital Review.

Two staff nurses and one emergency department physician were stabbed June 3 inside Encino (Calif.) Hospital Medical Center.

The alleged assailant, 35-year-old Ashkan Amirsoleymani, entered the hospital emergency department, where he asked to be treated for anxiety before stabbing the healthcare workers, police said, according to USA Today.

The suspect was then contained in a room in the emergency department for several hours where he barricaded himself with hospital teams, police and SWAT managing the situation, the hospital's owner, Ontario, Calif.-based Prime Healthcare, said in a statement shared with Becker's.

Hospital leadership and other staff members "responded swiftly, exhibiting incredible heroism in ensuring the assailant was locked in a room, unable to injure others. No one else in the hospital was injured," Prime's statement said.

"All patients in the ED and inpatient units received care without disruption which is an incredible tribute to the dedication and bravery of the Encino Hospital team."

Los Angeles Police Department Deputy Chief Alan Hamilton told NBC News after the arrest: "We do not believe he was either looking for anyone in particular or targeting a specific individual."

Prime's statement said the physician and nurses were stabilized and immediately transferred to the nearest trauma center, Dignity Health-Northridge (Calif.) Hospital Medical Center. They were in stable condition and recovering as of June 5.

The stabbing at Encino Hospital is among the latest incidents of violence on hospital campuses. Five people were killed and multiple others were injured June 1 in a mass shooting inside a medical office building on the campus of Saint Francis Health System in Tulsa, Okla.

On June 1, a security guard died after he was shot by a jail inmate who was being treated at Miami Valley Hospital in Dayton, Ohio. The inmate fatally shot himself in the hospital's parking lot.

On June 5, a visitor was shot and suffered non-life-threatening injuries at Wayne UNC Health Care in Goldsboro, N.C., which prompted a lockdown at the hospital for nearly an hour.

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