A serial escapee did "a runner" from the emergency room of the Canberra Hospital after he tricked a corrections officer into uncuffing him so he could use the bathroom.
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Documents released under Freedom of Information laws have shed light on the lengths Alexander Maconochie Centre inmates have gone to in escaping from the Canberra Hospital.
Two prisoners have fled from the Canberra Hospital while receiving treatment in the past five years.
This is despite inmates being taken there nearly 4000 times in the same period.
Last year, inmates were taken to the hospital more than 1000 times, a marked increase from the 625 times the year before.
One inmate who escaped last April was being treated in the adult mental health unit at the hospital.
The inmate had been receiving treatment there for more than a week.
According to the incident reports from the corrections officers there to monitor him, he had been assessed as a low security risk so he was unsecured in the common areas and courtyards of the low dependency unit.
Mental health staff had taken him there to mingle with the other patients.
However, the inmate kept mostly to himself and kept pacing up and down the inside common areas, the accommodation corridors and the three outdoor yards.
While the guards had stationed themselves at opposite ends of the common area to keep an eye on him, one lost sight of the inmate for a few minutes and assumed he was in the line of sight of the other guard.
But after the inmate failed to reappear, the guard went down to his colleague and asked "have you got him?". He did not have him.
The officers then did a sweep of the common areas and courtyards.
They alerted the nursing staff, who checked the patients' rooms.
One of the officers left to do a perimeter search while the other called the prison about 2.30pm to let them know.
The prison's area manager reported the inmate missing to police at 2.37pm.
Security footage captured the inmate scaling a fence on the Yamba Drive side of the hospital at 2.16pm in his AMC-issue grey polo, black shorts and black thongs.
The police report said there was no information to suggest the escape was planned.
In another escape in August, prison officers were summoned to an inmate's cell after he reported hearing voices and had cut his wrist.
The inmate had a 10-centimetre open wound on his left arm, with a foreign object lodged inside.
The prison nurses called the on-call doctor, who urged staff to take him to the hospital.
The deputy general manager of the prison gave permission for the inmate to be taken there but said he was to be handcuffed at all times to an officer "unless absolutely necessary", because he was a potential escape risk.
The man had previously tried to escape from custody at the magistrates court.
However one of the guards released the inmate from the long chained cuffs because he told him he wanted to go to the toilet.
The corrections officer saw there was nowhere inside the cubicle to cuff the inmate to but thought there was no way for him to get out.
However as he emerged he pushed past the guard and a nurse who had come to deliver his medication and "bolted" towards the front entrance.
The guard gave up chasing him as he realised he was "never going to catch him" and called his boss and the police to inform them he had "done a runner".
In his statement, the guard said he was "deeply regretful" for letting ACT Corrections down.
