A nurse friend recently told me a bizarre story. She was held hostage for several hours in an urban hospital by a patient with a scalpel. The patient was morbidly obese, and smuggled the scalpel into the examining room by hiding it in rolls of fat. As an aside, I asked her how she emotionally handled the event. To paraphrase, “I knew the patient and I knew he wouldn’t do anything. He surrendered the weapon after lengthy negotiations and did not hurt me.”
In another case, at New York’s Bronx Lebanon Hospital, a fired physician entered the hospital with a rifle hidden under his lab coat, and the outcome was tragic. Last week at a webinar, we heard about a school shooting where a student hid a handgun in a tree the night before the attack. He used the weapon the next day to shoot a student on the athletic field.
Key Takeaway:
Attackers are crafty when it comes to hiding weapons. We wish we could give you a proven method for detecting weapons, but it’s not possible. We recommend situational awareness, vigilance, and observing behavior for warning signs, but it’s not foolproof.
What are your stories about hidden weapons?
