Prisoner in Hospital Kidnaps Guard, Escapes

A hospitalized prisoner being guarded by a private security officer hired by the Sheriff’s Department escaped when he and his girlfriend kidnaped the guard, authorities said Monday.

Michael Ismael Valdez, 27, had been taken to Mercy Hospital for treatment of a gunshot wound after a car chase Thursday with National City police. He was arrested on suspicion of narcotics and weapons violations, and was being held on a no-bail warrant for robbery.

According to a Sheriff’s Department spokesman, Valdez’s girlfriend, Teresa Juliana Reyes, about 24, had been given permission to visit Valdez. When she arrived Sunday afternoon, she told the guard stationed outside Valdez’s room that she had a bomb and a weapon in the sack she was carrying.

She and Valdez then forced the guard to take Valdez, in a wheelchair, to the first floor of the hospital. The three then drove to Mexico in Reyes’ car, the spokesman said. The car was described as a tan or beige Chevrolet Chevette whose license plate had black lettering on a blue background.

At the guard’s request, the pair let him out in Mexico, and he found his way to the border and called the Sheriff’s Department. Authorities would not release the name of the guard, who is an employee of Wackenhut Corp., a security firm under contract to the department.

Hospital guards are unarmed and do not wear uniforms, said sheriff’s Lt. Sylvester Washington, a shift watch commander at County Jail downtown.

The Sheriff’s Department “prefers it that way,” he said. “The guards don’t have adequate training to be armed.” Inmate patients are not separated from other patients, he added, although the jail has a hospital ward for recuperating inmates.

Washington said it’s a wonder hospital escapes aren’t more common. “We’ve been lucky, very lucky,” he said.

Authorities said Valdez, who goes by the aliases Ismael Gomez, Michael Antonio and Mike Valdez, is considered armed and dangerous.