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Inmate escapes from GA hospital

Healthcare Security Weekly, July 4, 2005

A prison inmate that East Central Regional Hospital in Augusta, GA, was treating escaped from the hospital, the August Chronicle reports.

Bruce Edward Morgan cut himself on the arm while serving time at the Columbia County Detention Center and prison guards took him to the hospital for psychiatric treatment after doctors at Medical College of Georgia Hospital deemed he needed further treatment.

Columbia County Sheriff Maj. John Wheeler warned a doctor at East Central Regional that Morgan was a security risk, but the doctor never relayed the information to hospital security because of federal patient privacy laws, Wheeler told the paper.

Police suspect Morgan escaped through a ceiling in a bathroom, but no one noticed he was missing for an hour.

Authorities eventually caught Morgan at a restaurant later in the day after he burglarized a house and changed clothes. He was originally in prison on charges of auto theft and felony drug possession.

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