Soldotna Hospital Shooting

An e-mail sent to the news station late this morning said: "There's been a shooting at the Soldotna hospital." Reporter Jason Moore and photographer Mike Nederbrock immediately headed south -- it's about a three hour drive from Anchorage.

Central Peninsula Hospital became the scene of a deadly rampage Wednesday morning when a disgruntled former employee shot two staff members, killing one, before state troopers ultimately shot and killed the gunman, Joseph Marchetti, 47, was fired Tuesday and he returned Wednesday around 10 a.m. heavily armed with plans for revenge.

Mike Webb, the hospital's information technology director and a former supervisor of Marchetti, was the first victim. He died less than two hours after being shot in the neck. His wife and daughter were at the hospital. Webb, 55, also had a son serving in Afghanistan. Margaret Stroup, Marchetti's most recent supervisor and imaging director, was the next victim. She spent the day in surgery and was scheduled to be airlifted to Providence Hospital in Anchorage Wednesday evening.

At Central Peninsula, bullet casings litter the hallway and bullet holes pierce the doors and walls. Jason Paret, the hospital's chief financial officer, responded to the first shot and almost became the second victim.

"It looked like a military rifle, like an M-16," Paret said. "Then he pulled up on the gun and tried to fire it at me and it jammed. Then he started wringing on the chamber trying to get the shell out, I think, then I started running, started zigging and zagging down the hallway and I heard some more shots behind me."

After Paret escaped, Marchetti then shot the 57-year-old Stroup and fired his weapon throughout the hospital.

"I opened the door and I saw Mike Webb in the wheelchair and he said ‘I've been shot,'" recalled administrative assistant Terri Nettles. "I looked at a lady walking by and said, ‘What's going on?' She said, ‘Someone is running the halls shooting people,'"

Nettles locked the administration office door as Marchetti shot wildly through the walls and bullets whizzed past her head.

"You could feel it -- I mean one of 'em went right past my head when I was running from one office to another office to get away from the shots," Nettles said. "You could see the sheetrock and the dust flying as the bullets went through the walls."

After the chaos inside, police confronted Marchetti outside the hospital.

"(Marchetti) was telling them to shoot him," said John Roderick, who watched the standoff from across the street. "He said ‘Shoot me! Shoot me!'"

After a 15-minute standoff, Marchetti got his wish when he made a move to leave the area, according to Roderick.

"They kept telling him to put the gun down. He made a move going toward the road, and they shot," Roderick said. "About four or five shots."

The Alaska State Troopers reported that three troopers fired their service weapons during the incident. A blood-splattered disturbance in the snow shows where Marchetti fell 40 minutes after the nightmare began.

"It's hard to believe it occurred," a visibly shaken Paret said. "You can do well until you have moments of reflection. When you stay professional, a leader, it's all right. But the moment you reflect on what occurred and everything, your family, that's when it gets hard."