GOSHEN, Ind. -- A man armed with a shotgun opened fire Thursday at the simulated-wood factory where he worked, killing a co-worker and wounding six others before committing suicide, authorities said.
One person was slain inside the Nu-Wood Decorative Millwork plant. About two hours after the 2:30 p.m. EST shootings, a SWAT team found the gunman in the factory's office area with an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound. A shotgun was near the body.
"He was dead when they found him," Elkhart County Sheriff's Capt. Julie Dijkstra said.
The gunman had apparently just been fired or was about to be fired, she said. His identity was not immediately released.
Goshen Police Chief Terry Schollian told a news conference, "All I'm aware of is there was a dispute, and he left the property and came back."
Five male employees and one female were wounded, Schollian said.
The most seriously wounded person was upgraded from critical condition to serious after being flown to Parkivew Hospital in Fort Wayne, hospital spokeswoman Alice Alesia said.
Conditions of the others were not immediately available, but State Police Sgt. Brant Klemm described them as "walking wounded."
Workers told authorities an automatic weapon was used and some injuries appeared to be shotgun wounds. Schollian would not say whether the weapon was automatic.
Earlier, the mayor and hospital administrators said they feared 30 to 35 people had been shot. Corporate reports show that's about how many people are employed at Nu-Wood.
As many as 35 were inside the plant at the time of the shootings, but most escaped unharmed, Schollian said. Initial reports of the number shot apparently were based on incorrect information heard on police scanners, he said.
One employee called police from inside the factory to advise what route the SWAT team should use to enter the building, Schollian said.
Tammy Funderburk of nearby New Paris said she spoke briefly by cell phone with her 18-year-old son, who worked at the factory and escaped uninjured.
"He saw the gunman coming and he had a big rifle," Funderburk said. "He saw the gunman shooting people and he ran out the back door as fast as he could."
About five Nu-Wood employees escaped their building either with minor injuries or no injuries, Dijkstra said.
Dispatchers were alerted in a 911 call from a neighboring factory at an industrial park, she said. About 12 nearby factories were evacuated.
The shooting jolted this northern Indiana community of 29,000 about 100 miles east of Chicago. An elementary school kept its pupils inside and Goshen College, a small school run by Mennonites, told students and faculty to stay indoors.
Police and SWAT teams surrounded the factory and cordoned off the industrial park on the edge of town. Twelve nearby plants were evacuated, and more than a dozen ambulances lined up near the complex.
"The place is smothered in cops," Chris Barouska, a parts manager at a neighboring Ingersoll-Rand factory, said as authorities scrambled to find the gunman. "Completely surrounded."
By late afternoon, people were leaving the building with their hands on their heads and rescue crews removed people on stretchers.
Goshen High School Principal Ted Mahnensmith said the sheriff's department asked to use the school's parking lot for gathering families. The lot is about 2 miles from the factory.
Nu-Wood makes a polyurethane-based product that resembles white pine and is used as decorative trimming by homebuilders and remodelers.
According to Dun & Bradstreet, the company employs 35 people and reported $3.1 million in sales last year. Nu-Wood changed its name from GR Plastics Inc. earlier this year and leases 40,000 square feet at the Goshen building.
Herb Stein, a Nu-Wood manufacturer's representative who works out of his home in Akron, Ohio, said it was not a typical factory.
"It's not like an assembly line situation," he said. "Everyone knows each other, and everyone intermixes with each other."
Randy Zelman, who sells Nu-Wood products to wholesalers that supply builders and developers, said he heard about the shooting as he drove home to Columbus, Ohio.
"I'm all shook up," Zelman said in a telephone interview from a Dayton, Ohio, gas station. "I'm concerned for the people because they treat me like family."
"This is not the kind of thing you expect to happen in Goshen, but I guess people always say that," Mayor Allan Kauffman said. "We've had things like that happen in surrounding communities, and said, 'Thank God, it didn't happen in Goshen.' Today, it was Goshen."
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