Temple nurses rally over safety concerns after active shooter alert

A loud bang from just outside Temple University Hospital rang through the emergency department, around the same time as a man burst in from the street and barricaded himself in a bathroom.

People in the waiting area that afternoon, a relatively quiet Sunday in July, dove for cover. Staff quickly ushered patients into secured rooms.

An announcement came over the loudspeakers throughout the hospital: “Active shooter — code silver.”

“It was just terrifying,” said Marie LoPresti, who was on duty as the emergency department’s head nurse and called 911. “We didn’t know who he was; we didn’t know if he had a gun.”

The incident was defused within half an hour. Temple University Police took into custody a man who did not have a weapon. Police did not find evidence of a shooting outside the hospital.

Shaken hospital staffers called for stronger security measures and more staff training at a rally Wednesday held outside the emergency department and organized by PASNAP, the union that represents Temple nurses and technicians. The union is in the process of negotiating new contracts for about 2,700 nurses and techs, and said safety will be among their top priorities.

Hospital administrators acknowledged that episode was scary for those in the emergency department, but told The Inquirer that medical staff followed protocol to issue an alert at the first sign of danger. And campus police acted appropriately to confirm there was not an active shooter in the building.

“These types of scenarios are challenging,” said Shane McDevitt, vice president of facilities at Temple University Health System. “You can never prepare enough for them.”

While no one was hurt, nurses at one of Philadelphia’s busiest trauma centers say the incident highlights the routine dangers they are exposed to — and that they feel unprepared to handle.

Workplace violence is common in healthcare, with 81% of nurses reporting being punched, kicked, spat at or threatened in the last year, according to a survey by National Nurses United, the largest union representing registered nurses. Healthcare workers across the Philadelphia region have raised concerns about workplace safety at the area’s hospitals.

Active shooters at hospitals are rare, but are among the most serious safety events staff may encounter. In 2021, a certified nursing assistant fatally shot a coworker at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital. Inspira Medical Center in Vineland was briefly locked down in 2023 for reports of an active shooter, who died by suicide without harming anyone else.

“We don’t expect Temple to stop the violence in North Philly, but we expect them to provide the safest environment possible for staff and patients,” said LoPresti, who is part of the union’s bargaining committee.

» READ MORE: ‘I went home with blood all over me’: At Philly hospitals, health-care workers face routine violence

Wednesday’s rally drew about 50 Temple nurses, techs, and supporters, who gathered outside the hospital to demand better work conditions.

“That wasn’t a special day. We get attacked, we get harassed, it’s unsafe,” Carlos Aviles, a tech at Temple and president of Temple Allied Professionals, said to a crowd gathered at the corner of Broad and Ontario Streets. “What are we going to do about it?”

Nurses said they want Temple to do more drills for active shooters and other situations they may encounter on the job.

They also want Temple to increase police staffing inside the emergency department, and improve weapons detection technology.

The emergency department has scanners to detect weapons, but they often miss knives and guns, said LoPresti, the veteran emergency department nurse working during the recent shooter scare.

LoPresti said she has also asked administrators to enforce rules that ban people from congregating outside the emergency department doors.

Often when a patient arrives with a gunshot wound, family and friends will gather outside to wait for news, sometimes setting up lawn chairs on the pavement. She thinks that shootings that have occurred so close to Temple’s doors were retaliation shootings targeting someone in the crowd.

Temple’s protocol is designed to empower staff members to act quickly in an emergency, said McDevitt, Temple’s vice president of facilities.

Any staff member can issue an emergency alert that is sent within the hospital and to the administrative team, he said.

Overhead announcements are aired repeatedly through the hospital’s speakers every five minutes until the scene is deemed safe.

“We would rather them act immediately and err on the side of caution,” McDevitt said.

It is the police officers’ job to investigate whether the threat is legitimate.

That means officers often respond to a call that, upon investigation, is not what was reported, said Jennifer Griffin, chief of police and vice president for public safety at Temple University.

Through feedback from its safety committee, the hospital has transitioned to windows with bulletproof glass. Public entrances are monitored, and staffers use separate, locked entrances.

The hospital includes questions about active shooter scenarios in training throughout the year, McDevitt said.

After responding to the recent active shooter concern, police determined there was no threat and health system administrators sent a systemwide email clarifying what happened, Temple said.

Staff were offered emotional support resources, and leadership visited the emergency department for a formal debrief.