Police fatally shot a man inside the emergency room of Northumberland Hills Hospital on Friday night after his elderly wife was found with a fatal wound to her head inside that same room, the Special Investigations Unit confirms.
According to SIU spokesperson Jon Ansell, police were called to the scene late Friday night after nurses walked into an ER room and saw the woman’s injuries.
The man, who was 70-years-old, remained in the room following the incident.
The SIU says two officers from the Cobourg Police Service arrived on scene a short time later and had some sort of interaction with the man.
During that interaction, the SIU says that both officers discharged their firearms and the man was struck.
He was later pronounced dead on scene.
“A gunshot was heard. The nursing staff walked in and saw that the female had a head wound and was in dire need of quick attention,” Ansell told CP24 at the scene. “Because there was a gunshot the police were called and they entered the room where the male remained. Shots were fired at that time.”
The SIU says that the body of the man’s 76-year-old wife was located at the scene.
The SIU has told CP24 that the man and his wife were both admitted to the hospital earlier in the night and were “side by side” on gurneys in a triage room.
The SIU, however, has not confirmed the circumstances surrounding the death of the woman.
"We're not confirming one way or the other whether or not this man had a firearm or whether he discharged a firearm,” SIU Spokesperson Jason Gennaro told The Canadian Press.
The SIU is probing the shooting of the man while Ontario Provincial Police are conducting a separate investigation into the death of his wife.
In a press release issued on Saturday afternoon, the OPP said that the investigation is being conducted under the direction of its Criminal Investigation Branch (CIB) with assistance from its Forensic Identification Services Unit (FISU).
OPP have not said whether or not they are investigating the woman's death as a homicide.
"Police investigators can confirm that there is no risk to public safety based upon the ongoing OPP investigation," the release says.
Emergency room has reopened
Emergency room patients were being re-directed to other area hospitals in the hours after the shooting, however the emergency room was back up and running by 9 a.m.
Speaking with CP24 on Saturday morning, the president and CEO of Northumberland Hills Hospital said that the focus is now on getting staff the help they need in the wake of a traumatic event.
“At this point and time we have gone back to full service and we are moving forward,” Linda Davis said. “Our biggest concern right now is support for our staff and physicians who were outstanding in this situation. It is a matter of supporting our staff and making sure they have the emotional support for such a critical incident.”
Davis did not provide any information about the incident itself, citing the ongoing SIU investigation, but did say that she believes the investigation at the scene is “almost complete.”
Though the emergency department was not accepting new patients in the aftermath of the incident, she said that operations in the rest of the hospital were not impacted.
“It really was only the emergency department that was affected,” she said.
The SIU has assigned six investigators and two forensic investigators to the case.
With files from The Canadian Press
