Woman recounts being in lockdown during hospital shooting
By Michael Fuller
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YORK COUNTY, Pennsylvania (WGAL) — A woman who was inside UPMC Memorial Hospital in York County when a man took hostages and shot people said it started as an ordinary day.
But not long after Betsy Small arrived, things took a turn.
“It makes you think this could happen at any moment when you never thought that before,” she said.
Small was at the hospital on Saturday to see her mother.
About 10 minutes into the visit, there was an announcement that an armed intruder was in the building.
Even as she closed the door and locked it, she said it seemed unreal.
“You could hear the screaming. You could hear the gunfire, the alarms, crying, a lot of the panic. They had put notices up on the computers to run, hide, silence your devices, things like that. That’s when things got a little more serious,” Small said.
Small said she was in self-preservation mode to remain calm, but questions began to swirl through her mind.
“Can they get in here? What are they going to do? How many are there? Is this a terrorist situation? I had no idea at that time. A lot going on,” she said.
She said the hospital was locked down for several hours before people were able to leave the building.
Her visits now to the hospital feel quite different.
“I didn’t exit my vehicle immediately. I kind of scanned the parking lot a little bit. Going in I was in a hurry, looking around, a little paranoid,” she said.
Small believes there will be long-term effects for all involved, so she had a suggestion for the community.
“Have a little compassion for the workers. Have a little compassion for the people who have endured this – the victims, the families of the victims, including the family of the shooter himself. They also had a loss. They are grieving. They are probably faced with shock at what had occurred. They probably thought he’d never do something like this,” she said.
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