NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Two bystanders were shot and wounded after an argument outside a hospital culminated in gunfire Thursday, New Orleans police said.
A woman was arguing with a man outside University Medical Center before she fired several shots, striking a woman outside the hospital and a man inside the building, police said.
The man was wounded in the shoulder by a bullet that went through the glass entrance, Police Superintendent Shaun Ferguson said. He added that the woman was struck in the hip.
Both victims were in stable condition and neither wound was believed to be life-threatening, Ferguson said. Police originally believed both were inside the emergency department but that turned out to be incorrect, a news release said.
The woman suspected of firing the shots was arrested and the man she was arguing with has been detained for questioning, authorities said. A lockdown at the hospital was lifted shortly after midday.
However, emergency patients were directed to a different area, The Times-Picayune / The New Orleans Advocate reported.
Aubrey Edwards, who volunteers in that department as a medical advocate for sexual assault survivors, told the newspaper that she was getting vaccinated against the novel coronavirus when a nurse got a telephone call and started repeating, “There’s an active shooter.”
Edwards said she was in a group of about 20 people whom the nurse led into a closet. Doctors, nurses and volunteers began frantically texting for more information or to tell people they loved them, she said.
“You could tell some people were super distressed and freaked out,” Edwards recalled.
She said the nurse got word that it was safe about seven minutes later.