• E-mail
• Print
• RSS

Woman charged with abduction after posing as hospital worker

Hospital Safety Connection, April 7, 2004

Want to receive articles like this one in your inbox? Subscribe to Hospital Safety Connection!

A Salt Lake City woman posing as a hospital employee on March 29 allegedly abducted an infant from LDS Hospital, BYU NewsNet reports.

Police arrested Elizabeth Alarid, 39, after an LDS Hospital security guard found her and the 3-day-old baby at a nearby grocery store. Alarid faces kidnapping charges, police said.

The suspect, dressed in medical scrubs, entered a patient's room at 11:20 a.m. and told the baby's mother she needed to take the baby for circumcision, which she said would take 20 minutes.

A nurse confronted the suspect after seeing her walking down the hall with the baby in her arms, becoming suspicious because hospital employees usually transport infants in their bassinets. The woman allegedly told the nurse she was the baby's relative and agreed to return the baby to his mother.

But when the baby wasn't returned after 20 minutes, the mother notified hospital staff, who issued a Code Pink alert. Two hospital employees attempted to follow the suspect out of the hospital, but lost track of her.

A hospital security guard canvassed the neighborhood in his security vehicle and found the suspect at a nearby grocery store with the baby.

Want to receive articles like this one in your inbox? Subscribe to Hospital Safety Connection!

• E-mail to a Colleague
• Print
• RSS
• Archive