Shooting at UPMC's Western Psych
 

Has anybody heard anything about this? CNN has a small amount of news: 2 dead, 7 injured.

People keep asking me about it, and I'm out of touch. My favorite aunt works there, and I can't call - she works in a unit that doesn't allow phone calls. The chances are so unlikely that she would be among those hurt, as she's with children, but I still worry.

Scary. I'm really kind of glad I'm not working in psych anymore.

Central Catholic, Oakland Catholic and the elementary school at Carlow were all on lockdown this afternoon. Luckily Pitt is on spring break. Here's channel 4's story:

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pitt.../s_785529.html

I used to Volunteer there.
 

My chapter of Alpha Phi Omega at Carnegie Mellon had two brothers go over there once a week to play board games and other things with the pre-teens that where in Western Psychiatric. We had to take three hours of training before we were allowed in the rotation for the chapter...

Western Psych was a regional psychiatric center and I think they were one of the few in that area (W PA, WV, Eastern Ohio) that took kids under 13. One kid who I played a board game with,he said he had set a dozen fires before he turned 10. The doors to all of the rooms for the kids opened into the rooms, but there was a door within the door that opened out, so the kids couldn't block the door.

An alumna of my chapter works there. Fortunately, she is safe. She just posted on Facebook that she's thankful to whoever's watching out for her, because five minutes earlier, she would have been in that lobby. *shivers*

Being a psych nurse that trained at WPIC while attending Pitt's School of Nursing, I recalled all of the winter days that I trudged up the hill from the Quad to WPIC to go to clinical or to the Psych library that was just inside the door where the shooting occurred. In recent years, when I recount stories from working at a large jail Mental Health Unit in Houston, people are amazed that I felt safer there than at the private psych hospitals. Reason....no weapons, large deputies, huge staff, and...handcuffs...priceless!