News

Doctor shoots man who opened fire on hospital staff

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I’ve bolded the interesting parts of the story, which is from USA Today.

Excerpt:

A psychiatric outpatient opened fire Thursday inside a psychiatrist’s office at a hospital near Philadelphia, killing his caseworker and slightly wounding the doctor, who shot the gunman with his personal firearm, authorities said.

The suspect, Richard Plotts, of Upper Darby, Pa., was reported in critical condition after the shooting at 2:20 p.m. in an office at the Mercy Wellness Center of Mercy Fitzgerald Hospital in Darby, Delaware County District Attorney Jack Whelan said at an evening news conference.

The unidentified 52-year-old doctor shot Plotts three times and suffered a graze wound when the suspect returned fire, Whelan said at an evening news conference. Two guns were recovered.

[…]Whelan said Plotts, who has a history of unspecified psychiatric problems, and his caseworker arrived at the doctor’s third-floor office about 2 p.m., Whalen said. Soon after, another staffer heard a loud argument and opened the door to find the suspect pointing a gun at the doctor. The worker then closed the door and call 911.

Minutes later, gunfire erupted.

[…]Plotts, described as being in his mid-30s, was in surgery at the Hospital at the University of Pennsylvania. He was shot twice in the torso and once in an arm.

[…]A sign tells visitors to the wellness center to check weapons at the front, a medical technician told The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Hospital policy allows only on-duty law enforcement officers to carry weapons on campus, a Mercy Health System spokeswoman told the Associated Press.

So there was a “gun-free zone” sign. That didn’t stop the crazy person from coming in with a gun. And thankfully, it didn’t stop the DOCTOR from having a licensed concealed-carry firearm. But what if the doctor didn’t have a firearm? Well, then he’d be dead. The police would NEVER have got there in time to save him. And who knows how many more people the crazy person would have shot? I think this story shows the reason why law-abiding people need to own and carry firearms. When seconds count, the police are just minutes away.

Videos

Friday night movie: 13 Rue Madeleine (1946)

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Here’s tonight’s movie:

Description:

During World War II, Charles Stevenson Gibson, a St. Louis attorney with an extensive background in international affairs, is chosen by President Roosevelt to organize the secret activities of a new Intelligence Corps. Gibson, in turn, selects Robert Sharkey, a widely traveled, multi-lingual scholar who served with distinction in World War I, to administer the complex training program.

Selected groups of volunteers report to Washington for rigorous training before assignment overseas. In 1944, the candidates selected for the 77th group include Suzanne de Beaumont, a French citizen who became stranded in the U.S. when France fell, and whose husband is an artillery officer in the French army. Jeff Lassiter, the son of an American consul, educated in Geneva and Oxford and recruited from the Officers’ Training School at the University of California at Los Angeles, and Bill O’Connell, a Rutgers graduate and former employee of the foreign department of a major bank, are also chosen.

At a secluded country estate, the twenty-two candidates are given two weeks of intensive testing to see if they qualify for further training. Gibson tells Sharkey he knows that one of the candidates is a German agent and Sharkey is assigned to identify him.

IMDB rating: [7.0/10]

Here’s a spy image which is pretty cool, too:

A mysterious spy lurks at night
A mysterious spy lurks at night

Happy Friday!

News

Samaritan’s Purse physician contracts Ebola while serving in Liberia

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Dr. Kent Brantly
Dr. Kent Brantly

Here’s the story from the Samaritan’s Purse web site.

Excerpt:

Dr. Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol are in stable but grave condition. Dr. Brantly took a slight turn for the worse overnight. But even as he battles to survive Ebola, he received a remarkable gift from a patient he had helped to save.

“Dr. Brantly received a unit of blood from a 14-year-old boy who had survived Ebola because of Dr. Brantly’s care,” Samaritan’s Purse President Franklin Graham said. “The young boy and his family wanted to be able to help the doctor that saved his life.”

[…]Dr. Brantly, a family practice physician, was serving in Liberia through our post-residency program before joining the medical team responding to the Ebola crisis. His wife and two children had been living with him in Liberia but flew home to the U.S. before he started showing any signs of illness.

Last week, Dr. Brantly recognized that he had symptoms associated with Ebola, and immediately isolated himself.

[…]The deadly disease, which causes massive internal bleeding and has a mortality rate of 60 to 90 percent in most situations, has claimed more than 725 lives.

[…]“There’s an incredible level of braveness in Kent,” Robert Earley, president and CEO of JPS Health Network, told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. “You don’t meet people like this every day.”

Yahoo News has more about this fine man:

Even from his own sickbed in Africa, American physician Kent Brantly continues putting the well-being of others before his own.

Brantly, a medical missionary in West Africa, and fellow American Nancy Writebol both contracted Ebola last weekend. They spent the past several days under quarantine and are struggling to survive.

On Wednesday, an experimental serum arrived in Monrovia, Liberia, but there was only enough dosage for one patient.

“Dr. Brantly asked that it be given to Nancy Writebol,” said Franklin Graham, president of Samaritan’s Purse, the Christian humanitarian organization Brantly is working for.

Late Thursday, officials at Emory University Hospital near the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta confirmed that one of the two aid workers will soon be brought to a special high-security ward there. The name of the patient was not revealed.

Brantly’s gesture of letting Writebol have the serum fits the description of selflessness and sacrifice the 33-year-old’s family back in the U.S. has given.

“Kent prepared himself to be a lifetime medical missionary,” his mother, Jan Brantly, told The Associated Press on Monday. “His heart is in Africa.”

After the merciful move for Writebol, a local family made its own offering to Brantly.

If you are a person who prays, say a prayer for this brave Christian man.