South Carolina hospital, prison agency act in wake of ER shooting

The State, August 28, 2008

In a response to an attempted suicide in Columbia, SC-based Palmetto Health Richland's emergency room, the state prison agency is reviewing its procedures and equipment while the hospital decided to open a separate waiting room for inmates. After the incident, questions were raised about how easily a woman patient was able to pull a gun from a prison officer's holster and shoot herself in the head at the hospital. Neither the hospital nor police would discuss the circumstances of the shooting that put other emergency room patients and hospital staff at risk.