A male patient has been removed from Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center and is in police custody after an incident that occurred in the hospital early this morning.
The patient has been charged with three counts of aggravated assault and one attempted sex crime after the incident that resulted in injuries to three staff members. Security and other staff swiftly intervened and subdued the patient until authorities arrived.
The three staff members have been evaluated for injuries and discharged. Personal, individualized counseling has been offered. Staff with the Employee Assistance Program and Chaplain Services are working with them and other affected staff. The Medical Center’s Patient Experience team is visiting with patients and visitors on the unit to address any concerns or questions.
Considering the many potentially volatile situations that happen every day in health care settings—where people are often at their worst physically, mentally or emotionally—it is nonetheless extremely disheartening and disturbing any time any of our dedicated staff members are harmed in the course of doing their jobs.
We are dedicated to supporting the involved staff and their families in any way they may need it, and we commend the multiple staff members who quickly and selflessly intervened to help their colleague.
Incidents like this reinforce the critical importance of our mission to ensure the prevention of harmful events in our organization, including injuries to our staff. Hospital leadership is preparing a root cause analysis evaluation of the incident and has notified all appropriate regulatory agencies as required for such incidents.