Nurse Shot by Woman at Hospital : Violence: A second nurse at Corona Regional Medical Center disarms the assailant, who had chased the victim to the emergency room.

A distraught woman with a gun walked into the nursery of a hospital Monday and shot a nurse, whom she followed to toward the emergency room and shot again before being seized by another nurse who disarmed her, witnesses and authorities said.

The wounded nurse was in stable condition after undergoing surgery. No one else was harmed in the attack at the Corona Regional Medical Center.

Corona police identified the assailant as Sopehia White, 31, of Sunland. She was arrested at the hospital and held at Corona City Jail. Authorities did not release the identity of the victim.

After the victim was shot, witnesses said, she ran downstairs. Her assailant chased her and shot her again as she neared the emergency room, they said. Police said seven shots were fired and the woman was struck in the abdomen and the hand.

Outside the hospital, a shaken nurse, Joan Black, recounted to KCAL Channel 9 news how she disarmed the woman.

“She’d shot the lady, and the nurse was lying on the floor,” Black said.

The wounded woman apparently got up and the attacker pursued her with a revolver. “She caught up to her and shot her again,” Black said.

To comfort the woman and keep her from shooting anybody else, Black said she walked up to the attacker at that point and put her arms around her.

Black and the woman talked for about 10 minutes, witnesses estimated. “She said, ‘I’ve done a terrible thing.’ ” Black recalled.

“I kept my arms around her and my hand on the gun,” Black said. Eventually, “she gave me the gun, then she collapsed in my arms,” the nurse said.

Police Capt. Larry Lewis said that, although police had not yet determined a motive for the shooting, there was “some indication there was some relationship between the two women.” Black said the assailant yelled at the nurse she attacked: “You’ve taken my family, you’re going to die.’ ”

Black said her 25 years in emergency medicine and experience in the military helped her disarm the woman. “I’ve seen all kinds of stuff like this,” she said.