LONDON: A man has been arrested after one person was left in a life-threatening condition and an-other was injured in a stabbing attack at a London hospital.
Police said the man arrested at Central Middlesex Hospital in Park Royal also sustained “self-inflicted” injuries. The hospital was temporarily locked down but has since reopened with a heightened police presence.
One witness described how patients and visitors were locked in a nurses’ room while police dealt with the incident. Staff were evacuated from the hospital building, where officers will remain as searches are carried out. The Met Police said it was satisfied no-one else was being sought and that the stabbings were not be-ing treated as terror-related.
The attack was reported at about 13:20 BST. Paramedics said they treated three people at the scene.
Jamie Hogg, a contractor who saw the incident unfold, said he and his colleagues were visiting the hospital to carry out work and he saw police “just swarming in”. Staff waited outside the hospital after being evacuated from the building “It was armed police, one after another, one after another, and they just sprinted straight into the hospital,” he said.
“I’ve never seen anything like this before in my life, I thought it was crazy. It’s quite hard to believe.” He described the incident as “scary”, continuing: “It could have been any of us. I don’t know what were the reasons that drove him to that.”
Amie Ferris-Rotman, who was visiting the hospital dialysis unit with her father, told Sky News police checked the area where they were, before locking them in a nurses’ room for about 45 minutes.
She said: “All the dialysis patients were quite freaked out.”
“And at one point those who were about to go on to dialysis were put in wheelchairs and brought into a room, which is where we were as well, and they were locked in.”
Detectives have been carrying bags of evidence out of the hospital, including a clear bag containing what appeared to be clothing.
Three unmarked police cars, identifiable by the logbooks on their dashboards, remain in the car park of the hospital.
Armed police are responding an incident at Central Middlesex Hospital in London
The London North West University Healthcare NHS Trust, which runs the hospital, said the building was locked down as a “precautionary measure”.
In a tweet, the trust said: “While our clinics are reopening, we may need to reschedule your appoint-ment if we can’t see you today.”
The Labour MP for Brent Central, Dawn Butler, told BBC Radio London: “The police have the situation very much under control.
“They have arrested somebody and I think the situation should be a lot calmer now.
“It’s quite reassuring that the police are not at this stage looking for anybody else, and they have the whole situation in hand.”
She added: “That additional stress when you’re in hospital isn’t very good, so I’m grateful the police acted really quickly and got this under control as quickly as they did.”
London Ambulance Service said it had sent an incident response officer, an advanced paramedic, an ambulance crew and a medic in a fast-response car, as well as a hazardous area response team and the air ambulance. –Agencies
