The call came across security guards' radios late Tuesday night — a woman was shot near a hospital bus stop.
Before police arrived, some nurses were pushing a stretcher through drenched grass outside MedStar Franklin Square Medical Center.
The woman, a hospital housekeeper, was a few weeks on the job when wheeled back inside the Rosedale hospital, now an emergency-room patient in critical condition.
"It's not likely she would have survived if people did not act very quickly," said Debra Schindler, a hospital spokeswoman.
Police named her ex-boyfriend, Erwin Acree, as the shooter. Through Tuesday night, officers searched for the 29-year-old from Southwest Baltimore.
They tracked him to an Irvington home, where Acree shot himself after a standoff Wednesday afternoon, police said.
His condition wasn't known late Wednesday.
Acree was hospitalized and will be charged with attempted murder and assault, police said. Online court records did not list his attorney.
The victim was shot at 11:30 p.m. Tuesday outside Franklin Square, police said. Then the suspect fled.
The hospital was locked down about an hour while officers searched for him.
Meanwhile, the nurses and doctors treated the housekeeper in the emergency room, Schindler said.
Within about an hour, she said, the doctors had stabilized the woman. And she remained in critical but stable condition Wednesday.
"That she was one of our own was a secondary issue, but it certainly added to the feeling of triumph," Schindler said.