Nurse reveals brutal attack in the ER as Maryland healthcare workers increasingly face violence on the job

Attacks against doctors, nurses, and other healthcare workers are on the rise in Maryland and increasing in intensity, a WJZ investigation has found. 

Medical professionals are five times more likely to be attacked, and most have experienced violence or threats on the job, especially in emergency medicine. 

An experienced nurse who was punched while working in the emergency department shared her story and the impact of the attack with WJZ Investigates. 

Nurse attacked on the job 

Lisa Fischer has been a registered nurse for more than two decades. She was an EMT and paramedic before that, and got into the healthcare field because she loves helping people.

“One of the great things about emergency nursing is that you are able to see immediate results,” Fischer told WJZ Investigator Mike Hellgren.

One day in December 2022, she was attacked on the job by a patient she was trying to help. 

“This wasn’t kind of just a little slap on the face or anything like that. I got full on punched,” she said. 

She has since healed from the attack, but still vividly remembers what happened after triaging that patient. 

“She basically stood up and cocked back her wrist and punched me in the face,” Fischer said. “I was shocked. It actually pushed me off my chair. I fell over. When I got up to leave, she blocked my way out of the room, so I was trapped in the room. She picked up a chair and was coming towards me with the chair, and fortunately, some of my colleagues heard something and interrupted her.”

Fischer said the patient gave her no warning signs before the attack and was eventually arrested.

“I wanted to make sure in this particular case I followed through, so I did press changes against that person,” she said. “I wound up going to court four times over the year.”

Fischer said the patient never showed up to her first court appearance and was arrested on a bench warrant. She said the woman who attacked her had similar episodes at other healthcare facilities in the past. 

“The fourth time—more than a year later—we finally did have a trial where she was found guilty, and she was sentenced to the time she had already served,” she said. 

Fischer noted that the judge required the patient to get mental health services.

When asked what went through her mind as the attack unfolded, Fischer told Hellgren, “I went completely blank. I was totally stunned. Totally shocked. I couldn’t remember the number to call the security office. I mean, I couldn’t remember anything. I was just totally caught off guard.”

She said since the attack, she has worked as an advocate to help others in the healthcare workforce across the country.

“It’s not a felony to attack a healthcare worker. It’s a felony to attack an airline worker, a police officer, a firefighter, even a cat, but it’s a misdemeanor to attack a healthcare worker. Part of the outcome of this is that I’ve become an advocate for some of the laws and things to try to strengthen that,” she said. 

Instances of hospital violence

One of Fischer’s friends used to work at a York County, Pennsylvania hospital, less than 60 miles north of Baltimore, where on February 22, a distraught man used nurses as human shields. 

He zip-tied them together before shooting a nurse, a doctor, and a custodian. 

Officer Andrew Duarte, who began his law enforcement career in Ocean City, Maryland, as a seasonal police officer, died in the incident.

“Losing one of our own, no matter where they served, is a profound reminder of the risks we take and the bond we share,” Ocean City’s Interim Police Chief Michael Colbert said. 

“It is terrifying, and it’s not isolated to my department. It’s not isolated to Maryland or my county. It’s all over the country,” Nurse Fischer said. 

In September 2010, the son of a woman who was being treated at Johns Hopkins Hospital opened fire and wounded a doctor before killing himself and his mother.

“I was standing right there, and a physician went down. It was very, very loud,” a witness said. “He fell down on the ground screaming. Everyone looked and just lunged for safety. I’m really okay. It was just right next to me that he dropped down.”

Hellgren reported that at the time, it led Johns Hopkins to review security on its hospital campus. 

Raising awareness about violence against healthcare workers 

Maryland is trying to alert the public to the violence facing healthcare workers.

The state has launched a campaign to show the impact and work to change behavior. 

The General Assembly mandated the awareness campaign.

“It’s not ok that these people who are showing up every day in sacred places like healthcare are experiencing this kind of violence towards them, and so we hope this campaign will help address and humanize that so that we can make a dent in the problem,” said Stephanie Peditto, the president and CEO of the Maryland Patient Safety Center, which put together the campaign.

“We already have delays in our emergency department, and now we’re taking more time away from caring for patients because of workplace violence events. It really does affect the timelines of everybody’s care—the quality and safety of everybody’s care—and the future of the healthcare workforce,” Peditto said. “It has huge implications for the whole healthcare system.”

Violence in hospitals and clinics, while common, can be hard to track and is often underreported. 

A 2023 study revealed that 8 in 10 nurses experienced workplace violence over the past year:

• 68% were verbally threatened.
• 36% were slapped, punched, or kicked
• 30% had bodily fluids thrown at them

A 2019 Maryland Hospital Association study found 181 incidents of patient violence against hospital employees over two years. 

Four in ten of those incidents occurred in the emergency department.

“I just heard yesterday, as a matter of fact, about a nurse in the state of Maryland, who was hit purposefully in the head and has suffered a brain bleed,” Peditto said. 

“Is a verbal threat enough? Does it need to be a physical altercation? These haven’t been defined, and so it leaves healthcare workers a little bit unsure of when and how to actually report healthcare workplace violence,” she told WJZ. 

Managing workplace safety

Dr. Patsy McNeil is the chief medical officer for Adventist Healthcare. She is also an emergency room physician with decades of experience. 

“I personally have been swung at, kicked at, had objects thrown at me, pieces of furniture thrown at me. There are multiple bodily fluids in containers that have been thrown at me,” Dr. McNeil told WJZ Investigates. 

And the climate has only gotten worse.

“The incidents are definitely on the rise, and the level of aggression we are seeing is a lot more intense than it used to be when I was back getting training 25 to 30 years ago,” she said.

As to what may be driving it, “Aggression comes from fear, mental illness, as well as just plain stressors from life in general,” McNeil said.

For some, violence has become accepted, even celebrated. 

Many people showed up to support Baltimore native Luigi Mangione, who is now facing the death penalty for shooting the CEO of United Healthcare. 

Mangione is the Class of 2016 valedictorian at the elite Gilman School in North Baltimore. 

“I think it would be inappropriate for us not to recognize that people are struggling—and struggling quite a bit—and that’s driving that Mangione case reaction quite a bit,” Dr. McNeil said. “And it’s driving the violence we see. Having said that, it’s never acceptable for folks to go outside the boundaries of well-mannered ethical standards of behavior to be able to interact with their fellow human beings.”

Unlike most states, Maryland requires all hospitals to have violence prevention plans. 

Across the country, some medical centers have metal detectors and even panic buttons for staff. 

Dr. McNeil stressed the intensive training her staff receives to keep them safe.

“We have to have a plan. We do have a plan, and we’re very, very closely adherent to that plan,” she said. 

Adventist also provides a unique service—medical forensic exams for any victim in the state. 

Jessica Volz is the director of the Forensic Medical Unit. 

“I have seen an increase in the number, not just the number, but the severity of the incidents,” she said. “…I really hope healthcare workers, because they have experienced so much workplace violence, I hope they know that there are resources available to them.”

Lasting impact of an attack

Lisa Fischer said her attack changed her emergency department. 

“One person actually retired. Another person left the emergency room, and another person reduced their hours because they just didn’t feel safe in that environment,” she said.

And even though Fischer loves her job, she lives with the nagging fear that it could happen again. 

“I did have a pretty impressive black eye. I did have the three stitches. I think the mental impact lasts with you the longest,” she said. “…You don’t forget that those things happened, and you wind up being on a higher sense of alert just to make sure those things don’t happen again.”