ORLANDO, Fla.,None — A murder-suicide in a parking garage at Florida Hospital in Orlando on Thursday left a surgeon and the gunman dead, police said.
The surgeon was identified as Dr. Dmitriy Nikitin, police said.
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Police and Fire-Rescue crews responded to the parking garage at the hospital on East Rollins Street near Orange Avenue late Thursday afternoon after reports of gunfire.
A patient shot and killed 41-year-old Nikitin before turning the gun on himself, police said. Nikitin was a organ transplant surgeon.
The shooting happened near the elevators on the first floor of the parking garage used by employees and patients' families. Police believe Nikitin was shot on one level of the parking garage and that the gunmen then went to a different level where he shot himself. He later died from his wounds
Investigators have released very little information about the gunman, except that he came to the hospital on Thursday and for some reason decided to take Nikitin's life.
"Why the doctor is targeted, we don't know. We are working with the hospital…We still have a lot of unanswered questions," said Lt. Barb Jones, of the Orlando Police Department. "It's a horrible incident. Certainly somebody who kills somebody like that in a parking lot… A doctor who works to save lives…It's just a unfortunate situation."
Sources told WFTV that Nikitin had been at the hospital for just three years and has a wife and children. Nikitin also taught at the University of Central Florida's College of Medicine. Last year, he was part of a surgical team that set a Florida Hospital record for the most number of transplants ever done in a weekend.
Nikitin was rushed inside Florida Hospital where his co-workers tried to save him, but couldn't, police said. The suspect was taken to Orlando Regional Medical Center, where he also died.
There are surveillance cameras inside the parking garages in certain areas, but there's no word whether they captured the incident.