Prisoner escapes through a hospital air duct after asking to use the loo

The phrase ‘disappeared into thin air’ took on a new meaning in Malaga last Thursday, when a prisoner escaped from police at a Malaga hospital by climbing through an air duct.

Although Malaga’s Clínico hospital has a prisoner module, this particular patient needed facial surgery for a fractured jaw and the Hospital Civil specialises in this type of operation. The 19-year-old, who has an extensive police record, was under guard in his room. He told the officers he needed to go to the bathroom, and they let him go on his own but told him to leave the door partly open. However, after a few minutes had passed and he hadn’t come back, they went to investigate and found that he had forced open the grille that gives access to the false ceiling, which is where the hospital’s air duct is situated.

After crawling through there for a few metres, he forced another grille open and found himself in the bathroom of another room, occupied by an elderly lady. She was scared when he suddenly burst into her room, but he stopped her screaming, she says, by putting his hand round her throat and telling her not to shout or to call the nurses. She didn’t need to, because two of them came into the room at that moment, and the prisoner rushed past them and out into the corridor.

The officers who had been guarding him in his room put out a radio alert and within minutes cars arrived on the scene, but by then prisoner had already left the hospital complex.

However, it didn’t take them long to locate him. He wasn’t far away, and had apparently broken into two cars in his attempt to escape. He was spotted in the driving seat one of them, before he was able to get it started.

The prisoner was taken back to the jail, where he is in the infirmary and has still not had his operation.