An 88-year-old man stormed into a New Jersey hospital with a gun on him on Friday, killed his wife who was receiving treatment for cancer and then tried to kill himself.

The man was in critical condition due to a self-inflicted head wound, said Police Chief Michael Mastronardy. Shortly after the incident, the octogenarian was airlifted to the trauma center at Jersey Shore University Medical Center in Neptune.

Authorities did not make public the names of the spouses involved in the shooting. Police will do that after the relatives are notified. According to Chief Mastronardy, the two spouses lived in Holiday City, a retirement community in nearby Berkeley Township.

The shooting started at about 12:20 p.m. when the man walked into the hospital room of his wife on the second floor and fatally shot her. Police locked up the hospital for about 10 minutes so they could secure the zone and make sure no one else was in danger. The woman’s hospital roommate was not harmed. The hospital is located just west of the Garden State Parkway in Ocean County.

"It was a very calm response," Mastronardy said.

"I don't think very many people knew anything was transpiring."

Authorities are trying to establish whether it was a mercy killing. The man was standing by his wife's bedside when he shot her.

"It's a situation where someone takes ill, and this is a result of that sometimes," Chief Mastronardy said.

The police chief added that the hospital isn’t to blame over the security measures. The accident could have happened anywhere, even at their home.