kaiserpapers.com/horror
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted at: http://www.smdailyjournal.com/article_preview.php?id=49612‘Psyche’ patient escapes By Bill Silverfarb
A Kaiser Medical Center patient is in custody following a bizarre incident that left a security guard hospitalized and a pregnant woman traumatized.
Michael McKay, 30, was arrested for carjacking, assault with a deadly weapon and felony hit and run after the alleged psychiatric patient escaped the Redwood City hospital Saturday afternoon.
San Mateo resident Robina Dutt-Singh was sitting in her car on Veterans Boulevard when a man approached the car screaming “help,” she said.
Singh, eight months pregnant, said McKay looked normal at first but then turned into a monster.
The man lunged for Singh’s keys and the woman was barely able to escape the car, she said.
Chasing the man out of the hospital were two security guards.
One of the security guards reached into the car to stop McKay, but he sped off at a high rate of speed southbound on Veterans Boulevard with the security guard hanging out the window, said Redwood Police Department Sgt. Alan Bailey.
“One minute I’m resting in the car and the next I’m laying on the street watching my car speed away. I felt like I had lost the baby,” Singh said.
McKay lost control of the car and collided with three other northbound vehicles at the Maple Street intersection, Bailey said.
“He probably lost control because the security guard was in his lap,” Bailey said.
McKay hit a car head on, backed up and hit another car and then fled the scene. In all two cars were totaled.
Bailey was at the scene Saturday and said he saw McKay hop into the back of a pick-up truck in the parking lot of Hoot Judkins Furniture store to hide.
“I told the truck to stop. Opened the tailgate and apprehended the suspect without incident,” Bailey said. “He just froze when he saw me. There was no struggle. No nothing.”
The security guard was taken to a local hospital and is OK, said a Kaiser spokeswoman.
Kaiser could not confirm the patient was admitted into the psychiatric ward because of privacy laws but the Singh family said a hospital employee admitted the man was taken to the hospital by his parents because he was suicidal.
“If he is mentally ill I’m more angry at the people that allowed it to happen,” Singh said. “If he was on a suicide watch they weren’t doing a very good job of watching him.”
©2005 Daily Journal - San Mateo County's homepage