ALLENTOWN — A tragic story unfolded inside a hospital in Lehigh County Tuesday afternoon.
Lehigh Valley Hospital officials say a husband and wife are dead after a murder-suicide in what officials call an apparent mercy killing.
Police officers swarmed Lehigh Valley Hospital’s Allentown campus after hospital employees reported shots fired on the fourth floor, in the hospice section.
Hospital officials say when entering one of the rooms, workers found two people dead of gunshot wounds.
Ajsha Lamini works at NY Style Stromboli Pizza shop across from the hospital.
“A couple customers did come in a say they saw the commotion there, that there was helicopters and police all around, they explained that there was a shooting,” said Lamini.
Her initial worry was a gunman on the loose with William Allen High School only a block away.
“We`re right here, there`s a lot of people walking around and a lot of kids after school, it was one o`clock this afternoon it happened,” said Lamini.
The Lehigh County District Attorney says this is a case of murder-suicide.
Investigators say Elwood Osman of Northampton County came to the hospital with a gun around 1 p.m. shot his wife Mildred, 83, who was in hospice care, before turning the gun on himself.
“It`s a love story,” said Jim Geiger with Lehigh Valley Health Network. “The elderly gentleman did not bear to see his wife suffer and the family I believe observed that he just could not envision life without her.”
Hospital officials say there was no threat to anyone else in the building at the time of the shooting.
One woman came out to hospital afterwards and said there was no sign anything bad had happened.
“It`s not chaotic or anything, everyone`s just relaxed, and so forth. I just went in and got prescription and walked out,” she said.
Now after learning the truth, people agreed this was a tragic story.
“Yes it is, it`s sad,” said Barbara Quigney of Allentown. “It must be hard for someone to see their spouse suffer and not be able to do anything about it.”
Lehigh Valley Hospital officials confirmed the hospital in Allentown does not have metal detectors at the entrances, however they do use wands if there is a concern for weapons.
