A San Francisco performance of Hamilton ended in mass panic on Friday night after at least one person shouted “gun”, causing an evacuation of the Orpheum Theatre.
CBS News reports a woman had actually suffered a medical emergency at the same time a gun was fired on stage as part of the musical. An audience member then activated the theatre’s fire pull station, Orpheum Theatre tweeted.
“The audience and cast followed the life/safety system’s automatic announcement and exited the theatre,” the theatre said.
The woman, who is now reportedly in a critical condition in hospital, had suffered a heart attack.
“Someone in the theatre saw her and thought she was shot. In a matter of seconds, we all took cover,” CBS Sacramento reporter Shirin Rajee, who was watching the show, tweeted afterwards.
Rajee believes the audience started to“self-evaluate” in “fear of an active shooter”.
SF police tell me that during the chaos, people were jumping in their patrol cars in fear of an active shooter. Right now theater is being cleared out. A woman was taken out in an ambulance @CBSSacramento
— Shirin Rajaee (@ShirinRajaee) February 16, 2019
People exiting the theater at the Orpheum in SF after a gun scare caused mass panic @CBSSacramento pic.twitter.com/r6r2gLxaZl
— Shirin Rajaee (@ShirinRajaee) February 16, 2019
Speaking to NBC, San Francisco Police Captain Renee Pagano said “There was no one with a gun, there were no shots fired, at the end it was a medical emergency.”
A medical emergency at the end of our HAMILTON performance tonight sparked a panic that emptied the Orpheum theater in San Francisco. Someone’s screaming led to the panic and because we live in these troubled times with daily shootings everyone went into survival mode.
— Rick Negron (@RickNegron3) February 16, 2019
