MOUNTAIN STATES HEALTH ALLIANCE FIRED UP ABOUT NEW SECURITY

Mountain States Health Alliance (MSHA), including Johnston Memorial Hospital (JMH) in
Abingdon, is incorporating firearms into its security. Both corporate leadership and JMH senior
administrators began the process of implementing armed security four years ago.
Times are changing, explained JMH Security Site Manager John Garnard. Garnard
credits an evolving society for the hospitals need to adapt. The hospital was never a crime
place, but it has become one now, said Garnard.
According to FBI literature, healthcare employees
experience more Type 2 assaults than any other employees.
Type 2 assaults are those that happen to employees by
someone receiving a service, typically during an
employees normal tasks.
While no shootings have occurred at JMH, guns
have entered the emergency department (ED). Weve had
instances where patients have brought them in and tried to
hide them in a room, said Garnard. Fortunately, we got
them before there was any issues.
Securitys job description at JMH is to provide a
safe and secure environment for staff, patients, and
visitors, said Garnard. While the hospitals security goals and policies are not changing, the
tools security guards use are.
Hospitals are considered to be soft targets, places with ordinary people rather than a
fortified facility such as a military base, according to Epoch Times.
ABC-affiliated channel WGNO in Louisiana reported in March 2016 that a doctor in East
Jefferson General Hospital lost his life to a gunman. The gunman had no criminal records but did
have a mental illness history.
At Reston Hospital Center just outside Washington, D.C., a 52-year-old man with a
gunshot wound fired a shot to break the glass of the locked hospital doors and fired another shot
once inside. WTOP News reported that occupants were uninjured.
In Boston, Stephen Pasceri fatally shot surgeon Michael Davidson of Brigham and
Womens Hospital in January 2015. According to CNN, Pasceris mother died the prior
November, days after heart surgery performed by Davidson.
Garnard hopes that the presence of 9 mm handguns will prevent a similar event. You
would like to think theyre not going to walk into a place that they know where the officers are
armed.
JMH nurse Tammy Shumate looks forward to the changes in hospital security. It really
kind of gives our security officers a way to take care of us better, said the ED nurse.
Shumate called the ED the front door to the hospital.
One-third of hospital shootings occur in the ED, according to a 2012 Annals of
Emergency Medicine publication. Hospital employees comprised 20% of victims. While over
90% of shooters were male, they represented all adult age groups.

Before security at JMH began carrying pepper spray 5-6 years ago, security was
unarmed. Security personnel will receive 80 hours of training before they are certified to carry
firearms in the state and on hospital grounds.
Garnard said, The only time it would warrant even the weapon coming out of the holster
would be based on the fact of threat to somebodys life.Pretty much the same as the police
department.

Shumate said she has witnessed a change during 13 years in the ED. Used to, youd see
somebody come in, and they might be a little mad wed say, Okay, were calling security,
people would calm down. Now, Shumate says, Securitys at the door, in the room, and the
patients still getting really irate.
Shumate applauded hospital security for managing volatile situations. Theyre really
great about going into a room and trying to calm people down.
The quality or refusal of service can trigger violent reactions in clients, according to FBI
literature. Shumate said narcotics abuse adds to the escalation. They dont get their medications,
and they get really mad.
Garnard expects training and preparations to take roughly two months before JMHs
security is armed.