Doctor’s Attacker Sought

Police continued to search Wednesday for a man who stabbed a physician twice in the emergency department at Olive View-UCLA Medical Center in Sylmar after she tried to help him.

The man, who had not been identified, was trying to enter the patient-care area of the emergency room through a locked door when the doctor asked if he needed help, Officer Adriana Sanchez of the Los Angeles Police Department said.

“When she approached him, ... he turned her around and pushed her against the wall,” Sanchez said. “This disoriented her. The suspect left the location, and then the victim went to the restroom, where she noticed she had been stabbed ... with an unknown object.”

The man escaped shortly after the 7:45 p.m. Tuesday attack. The hospital beefed up security after the incident, said Los Angeles County Department of Health Services spokesman John Wallace.

The victim, a medical intern in her late 20s who has not been identified, was treated at the hospital for minor wounds to her chest and released, Wallace said.

Visitors must pass through a metal detector to get into the waiting room just outside the patient-care area, Wallace said. However, it’s unclear if the attacker used a metal object to stab the doctor, he said.

Wallace said it’s also unknown whether the man was a patient or a visitor at Olive View.

County police officers, who guard county-run hospitals and other facilities, and the LAPD locked down and searched the hospital, but were unable to find the man, Sanchez said.

Police have not released a full description of the attacker. There were no cameras to capture the attack, Wallace said, and no other witnesses.