Springfield Regional Medical Center went on lockdown early Wednesday morning when several victims from a mass shooting showed up in the emergency room.
Six people were injured in a shooting on South Yellow Springs Street in Springfield just before 2 a.m. Five victims were taken to Springfield Regional Medical Center, and the sixth victim was taken to Miami Valley Hospital by CareFlight. The victims were gathering for a wake when someone entered the building and began firing, Springfield police said.
Springfield Regional was on lockdown until just before 5 a.m.
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News Center 7 reporter Kayla Courvell reached out to local hospitals to find out why they go on lockdown.
“Hospitals all have emergency management plans for all kinds of scenarios, but public disturbances are something every hospital plans for, specifically for this kind of situation, where there are shootings with multiple people,” said Dr. Thomas Huth, Vice President of Medical Affairs, at Reid Health.
Huth said the lockdown at Springfield Regional is fairly common in situations like mass shootings.
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“Things get super emotional. People want to rush to the hospital to be with loved ones involved in these events and the security forces at a hospital can be overwhelmed very quickly, especially at 2 a.m. when this happened,” Huth said. “They don’t know if these people are armed, there could be people on both sides of the argument getting into further arguments. We’ve had this happen and it can become very ugly very quickly.”
At Reid Health’s emergency management plan for lockdowns includes workers staying in certain areas and patients staying in rooms.
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