PORTLAND — A sheriff’s officer says a calm nurse in a Portland hospital’s emergency room persuaded a man who held a gun to his head and demanded drugs to give up his weapon.
Washington County sheriff’s Sgt. Vance Stimler says the triage nurse at Providence St. Vincent Medical Center told the man early Thursday that she wasn’t comfortable treating anyone with a gun pointed at his head. Stimler says the man then pointed the semiautomatic weapon at his chest. The nurse said she wasn’t comfortable with that either and the man put the weapon down.
Another employee removed the gun.
The Oregonian reports that staffers moved the man to a secure room until deputies could arrive.
Stimler says the 21 officers who responded were braced for the worst. He calls the nurse a hero.
