Two shot at Wilmington hospital, campus locked down amid manhunt

ChristianaCare’s Wilmington Hospital was thrown into lockdown Tuesday afternoon as police responded to a shooting that left two people with gunshot wounds and forced the emergency department onto divert. The disruption hit an open medical campus that had to protect patients, staff and visitors while officers searched for a suspect inside the building.

Wilmington police said officers were called to the hospital at about 3:30 p.m. and found two gunshot victims at the campus on the 500 block of West 14th Street in Wilmington, Delaware. Their conditions were not immediately released. Hospital staff were told to move under lockdown conditions as law enforcement secured the scene and worked through the building.

Preliminary information suggested the shooting may have begun as a workplace attack involving one hospital employee and two co-workers. Officials said the suspect may have been a temporary employee, and police said the person’s identity was known as the manhunt continued. Officers from multiple agencies searched the campus while the scene remained active.

ChristianaCare said the campus was on lockdown and the emergency department was on divert as the system worked closely with law enforcement to protect patients, caregivers and visitors. That diversion matters in a shooting at a hospital: ambulances and walk-in patients must be rerouted even as emergency clinicians continue to manage care under security restrictions.

Scanner audio described one victim with a neck wound and another with an upper-body wound, and hospital employees were told the victims were reportedly struck in the basement. NBC10 Philadelphia reported those details as police and hospital officials continued to piece together how the shooting unfolded inside the facility.

Police urged the public to avoid the area while the investigation continued. The case underscored a hard reality for medical centers that remain open to the public every day: emergency treatment cannot stop, even when a hospital itself becomes the crime scene.