No threat found after shots fired call at Ascension Seton Northwest
AUSTIN, Texas - No threat was found after a shots fired call at Ascension Seton Northwest Hospital.
Officials say it stemmed from some sort of noise in the emergency room. There were no victims, no shots fired, and no criminal investigation.
"The reason you saw the response that you saw today is because we would rather take an incident where we have a potential active attack situation and give that incident as many resources as we can, and they if we need to scale it back, we can scale it back," Captain Krista Stedman with Austin-Travis County EMS said.
Because of active shooter events across the nation, Austin Police, Austin Fire, and ATCEMS have been training intensely together for the past year.
"This training that we had performing is what led to such a smooth reaction and response by our combined public safety agencies today," AFD assistant chief Andre de la Reza said.
"We found out there was an active shooter [threat] at the hospital. I went ahead and left the building to go to lunch, and when I came back our building was on full lockdown, so no one can leave and no one can get out," Lisa Ahearn, who works in a nearby clinic, said.
"You hear it’s a shooter, you have some concern, is there some guy running around?" Erik Valdez, who lives nearby, said. "I think the cops have it pretty contained. We’re in good hands with APD, I’d say."
With road closures, neighbors had a hard time getting home.
"Hopefully it'll be a good resolution soon, and our patients I'm assuming are staying away as they should, and everyone's safe and secured," Ahearn said.