Breaking News at Hopkins Hospital

Most people probably can't believe that this situation would happen, and I would agree. But I want to inform all of you that Hopkins did a great job of keeping its staff and students safe. In case you don't know, the SON has a security guard at the front entrance of the building and he is always there. Every morning and every evening he greets us as we come and go. There is also a policy that everyone in the building has to have a name badge with our picture and there are security guards on every street that surround the hospital and the schools along with cameras. I always feel safe and even when the shooting situation at the hospital occurred, I never feared for my safety because the school did a great job of protecting us.

So far I have been through three weeks of school and I have enjoyed all of it. I have met so many new and amazing people and had countless opportunities to participate in great things going on through Hopkins. Every day is a new day with new skills to learn and new objectives to go over. I would say that there is never a dull day in nursing school, especially today.

Today started like any other day, I was happy to not have class until 10:30 am so I got to sleep in a little later. I caught the shuttle and made it to school around 10:00 am. On Thursdays, I have pathophysiology first so I went to my class, spoke with some friends, went over some review questions and then started listening to the lecture.

During lecture, one of the girls sitting next to me passed her phone down to a few of us and told us to read her text message. It said ” Shooter on Nelson 8. Lock doors and windows and stay inside.” I couldn’t believe it. I knew that Nelson was a unit in the Johns Hopkins Hospital. The text message was from the Johns Hopkins Security alerts that the school and hospital send out if there is any emergency. Within 2 minutes, the whole class was aware of the situation going on across the street. Our professor had us work on some group work and told us to stay in the classroom.

About an hour later, we had some more details about the situation and we were let out of our classroom but had to remain inside the building.  The attitude in the SON was that of wonder, but not panic. The staff and other students tried to keep us up to date on the situation, and since we are across from the front entrance of the hospital, we could see some of what was going on. We saw the front entrance of the hospital blocked off by numerous police cars, fire trucks, and ambulances. There were security guards and police everywhere so it was crazy outside, but I felt safe inside the school.

Classes were canceled and it was lunch time so all of the students visited with each other, watched news updates on their phones, and contacted their families.  After about an hour, the SON staff let us know more information and told us the situation at the hospital was under control and we could go home. The area around the hospital was busy with emergency care people, the press, and police. I walked with my friends to the shuttle stop and learned that the shuttle had been moved because roads were blocked off. Eventually, I made it to the new shuttle stop and then came home safely.

Most people probably can’t believe that this situation would happen, and I would agree. But I want to inform all of you that Hopkins did a great job of keeping its staff and students safe. In case you don’t know, the SON has a security guard at the front entrance of the building and he is always there. Every morning and every evening he greets us as we come and go. There is also a policy that everyone in the building has to have a name badge with our picture and there are security guards on every street that surround the hospital and the schools along with cameras. I always feel safe and even when the shooting situation at the hospital occurred, I never feared for my safety because the school did a great  job of protecting us.

I took some pictures of what I could see so I hope you enjoy them.  It has been a crazy day, but now it’s settling down and time to start studying for that patho test next week.

Sniper in the SON lobby
Picture from our classroom of the front entrance of Johns Hopkins Hospital
The sniper right outside of the SON
Press and other people trying to find out what is going on.