for her to ask the caller.
"Are you driving?" "No, I'm at home," said the caller.
"Do you have a gun?" "Yes," she said.
"Can I have your name and address?" The woman gave a fake name
and address.
Then the caller asked a bizarre question of her own. "I've been kid-
napped. Can you come over?"
Police identified the caller by searching her cell phone number. She
has an arrest record, but she's no longer living at her last known
address. Police issued a warrant for her arrest.
The surgery center was placed on lockdown and evacuated by noon.
It reopened the next morning under heavy police presence. As unset-
tling as the ordeal was, Ms. Lipp says it forced her center to confront its
vulnerabilities to workplace violence.
• It can happen to you. A disgruntled patient? A mentally disturbed
person? Regardless of the reason, realize that an armed intruder can
attack the largest hospital or the smallest ASC. "You think, 'Who's
going to come and shoot up a surgery center?'" says Ms. Lipp."Well,
there are people who would. You have to keep coaching people that
this isn't something that just happens to somebody else. This sort of
thing can happen to you."
• Security measures. Had the caller made good on her threat, she
would have had little trouble entering the ASC. Staff couldn't lock the
doors from the interior to the main entrance on the far side of the build-
ing, because they couldn't find the small, L-shaped hex wrench that
places the push bar on the panic exit doors in the locked mode.
Problem solved.
• Restrict traffic. The ASC no longer lets patient escorts walk alone
back to PACU. Now, a nurse or receptionist escorts them. "Nobody's
Editor's Page
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