'It was absolutely horrifying': Witness describes B.C. hospital shooting scene

It was just a normal day for Christa Zeeman when she went to the emergency room at the Fraser Canyon Hospital in Hope, B.C., for a persistent cough. 

Zeeman, 47, lives near Manning Park and used to work at the hospital as a housekeeper. She says it wasn't unusual to see police cars stationed out front so she didn't think anything of it when she went in last Wednesday. 

"All of a sudden I heard gunfire start from the emergency room," Zeeman said.

"And then I panicked and I ran."

Zeeman had chosen to go to the hospital about 150 kilometres east of Vancouver at the same time that an officer was shot, and another man was fatally shot. 

RCMP say an altercation allegedly occurred between two people at the hospital who had been injured in a car accident on a nearby highway, resulting in B.C. Emergency Health Services personnel requesting police assistance.

Mounties say an "interaction" between the man and officers occurred at the hospital, resulting in one officer discharging their firearm. In a statement, police say the man received immediate medical attention but was pronounced dead at the scene.

B.C.'s police watchdog, the Independent Investigations Office, is investigating the incident.

'Everything was quiet'

The town's mayor, Victor Smith, says the small community is still reeling from the incident. 

Zeeman says she is still recovering from the shock of being in the hospital when the shooting occurred. 

For her, the ordeal started after she had been in the waiting area for about 30 minutes. Then, she heard about four or five gunshots. 

"At first I wasn't absolutely sure what I was hearing," she said.

Zeeman immediately panicked, thinking there was an active shooter targeting patients in the ER. 

"My first thought was that he was going to come out through those ER doors into the main waiting area and start shooting. So I just ran," she said. 

"It was absolutely horrifying."

'In a state of shock'

Zeeman remembers looking over at the triage area to see two terrified-looking nurses. As she made her way to the automatic sliding glass doors, the seconds it took for them to open felt like an eternity. 

In the parking lot, Zeeman hid behind her car along with a few other people who had run out of the hospital, including paramedics. 

"I ended up staying there. I was kind of in a state of shock and I was trying to contact family or anybody to tell them what was going on there," she said. 

When Zeeman looked over at the ER entrance, she saw an injured police officer come out hobbling on one leg. 

She says RCMP officers showed up within minutes. Then someone suggested she leave. So she did. Zeeman took refuge at her wife's workplace, which is next door to the hospital.

"I booked it over there because I didn't feel safe even in the parking lot," she said.  

'I can still hear the gunfire'

Two days after the incident, Zeeman says she is still processing what happened. She is thinking of seeing a counsellor because she can't get it out of her mind. 

"I can still hear the gunfire," she said. 

"Hopefully I'm able to lay this to rest. I'm kind of terrified to go back there at this point, so hopefully I don't need to go back for any health reasons anytime soon."

The Fraser Canyon Hospital emergency department was closed for the rest of Wednesday while B.C.'s police watchdog investigated the shooting. It re-opened Thursday morning.

Fraser Health said in a statement Thursday morning that although no one else was physically harmed, the shooting was upsetting for people in the hospital at the time.

In an internal memo issued Thursday afternoon and obtained by CBC News, health authority president Dr. Victoria Lee called the incident "tragic" and "distressing" and acknowledged its effect, saying it could leave "some members of our community feeling anxious and traumatized."