[Anchor]

A psychiatrist has been seriously injured after a woman in her 50s brandished a weapon at Sinchon Severance Hospital in Seoul. Police have arrested the woman at the scene and are investigating her motive for the crime.

Reporter Park Jaehyeon has the details.

[Reporter]

The stabbing occurred at around 4:30 PM yesterday (Nov. 4) at the Department of Psychiatry at Sinchon Severance Hospital in Seodaemun-gu, Seoul.

A woman in her 50s, identified as A, suddenly entered a consulting room, pulled out a weapon she had brought in a shopping bag, and attacked the psychiatry professor.

The victim suffered 5-centimeter-long lacerations to the face, arms, and head, and was rushed to the emergency room for treatment. He is reportedly not in life-threatening condition.

[Severance Hospital official: All matters regarding a patient's condition fall under privacy laws. We cannot know either.]

Hospital staff subdued A immediately after the attack, and police dispatched to the scene arrested her on charges of special assault about 10 minutes later.

A reportedly rambled incoherently following her arrest, stating things such as, "I originally intended to go to a different general hospital, but came to the wrong place."

It was revealed that A had not booked an outpatient appointment with the victim and had a history of receiving treatment for mental illness at multiple hospitals, including Severance Hospital.

Following the December 2018 murder of Professor Lim Se-won, a psychiatrist at Kangbuk Samsung Hospital in Seoul, who was killed by a patient's weapon during a consultation, the National Assembly passed the so-called "Lim Se-won Act" to strengthen penalties for assaulting medical personnel.

However, this attack against healthcare workers during consultations could still not be prevented.

Police are currently investigating A's motive while also considering upgrading the charges against her to attempted murder.

(Video reporting: Kang Si-woo | Video editing: Shin Se-eun)