(JTA) — An emergency room doctor at a Veterans Administration hospital in Florida was shot in the neck while subduing a wheel-chair bound shooter in the waiting room.
Dr. Bruce Goldfeder, the ER doctor at the West Palm Beach VA Medical Center on Wednesday noticed that a patient in wheel chair had pulled out a gun and was poised to open fire, according to local reports.
Goldfeder was shot in the neck while trying to subdue the patient, a double amputee, who opened fire in the emergency room. He tackled the man, identified as 59-year-old Larry Ray Bon, who had hidden the handgun in his wheelchair when he passed through security.
Bon is a homeless veteran who spent a short time in the U.S. Army in the ‘70s.
Goldfeder got shot when the gun hit the floor and discharged. The bullet went through his ear and neck to his skull. He was able to kick the gun over to a colleague.
“A little boo-boo on the ear and an entrance and exit wound on the skull, but I’m fine. If it was another inch lower, maybe it’d be a different day,” Goldfeder told local media. “I have to make sure that he doesn’t get hurt, and no staff members or patients get hurt,” he said of the scuffle.
He called for more allocations to provide more services for America’s veterans, who he called the real heroes.
A second person in the waiting room also was grazed by a bullet.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
