Man Leaves California Hospital Early, Takes 6-Foot-Tall Heart Monitor With Him

A 68-year-old patient at Mission Community Hospital decided to discharge himself Wednesday, leaving while still in his blue gown and attached to a $2,000, 6-foot-tall heart monitor.

“Everybody here is pretty surprised,” said Bill Daniel, the hospital’s chief executive officer. “Patients leave all the time and they take all kinds of things, but this one’s just a little different.”

Daniel and police could not explain how the slow-moving patient managed to escape detection as he walked away with the ungainly monitor.

Even more odd, minutes after leaving, the man returned to take a quick walk through the hospital avoiding both hospital staffers and police who chased after him, Daniel said.

Police, nurses and security guards spent Wednesday morning searching for the patient, who left the hospital at about 9:30 a.m. - shortly before he would have been formally discharged by hospital officials.

“He just walked out. He didn’t want to stay any longer,” said Stacy Blodgett, a public service officer for the Los Angeles Police Department’s Van Nuys Division.

Besides a missing-person report, a theft report also was filed with the Police Department.

“To me, the whole thing is strange,” Daniel said. “You wouldn’t think someone would get far with this 6-foot-tall apparatus.”