Like Steve McQueen …
No. Like Pat Reid, it seems that dad’s waking hours have returned to the study of escapology.
As dad was asleep when I arrived today, I sat on his bed and flicked through his papers. A half-hourly record of activity that the nursing staff have been compiling caught my attention. They’d clearly decided to keep an eye on his for a seven day period just to track what exactly he gets up to during the week. It all started harmlessly enough with notes about being asleep or confused and wandering the corridor between the “dorms” (the ward is split into four of five six-bed units) - there’s actually an official code on the form for “Wandering Aimlessly”!
The interesting bits of the log read as follows (times are loose approximations):
- Day 1
- 14:30 Wandering corridor.
- 16:00 Trying to get out of ward.
Trying to get out? That’s not good. Worse still, his research (cunningly disguised as wandering confusedly) was beginning to pay off.
- Day 2
- 13:30 Got off ward
It didn’t say how far he got, implying that he wasn’t at all far from the supposedly secure door when he was found (by the alsations, no doubt).
- Day 3
- 11:30 Trying to get out.
- 14:30 Got off ward. Found in East 5.
East 5?! That’s one ward along and down one floor - just a couple of minutes’ shuffling from the exit. In fact, if he went down before following the corridor to East 5 he’d have walked right past the exit (which, being motion sensitive, would have swung open obligingly). It’s fortunately that what was bound to have been “bitter cold” (as every day seems to be) would have driven him back inside had he been tempted to leave. I think we’re wise to take him a coat, scarf and hat each time we visit rather than leave these items at the hospital, otherwise he’d be far better equipped for a successful “home run”.
- Day 4
- “Trying to get out” three times today, but no success.
- Day 5
- 18:00 Got out. Found in corridor.
Fortunately he’s making the mistake of trying to get out during daylight rather than in the early morning or late at night when there’d be fewer people to apprehend him. I suppose there are more visitors about during the day, though, so it’d be easier to blend in.
It’s a good thing that his ward isn’t on the ground floor or he’d have started a tunnel by now.
When dad first went to the ward, I was surprised to find that the “secure” ward required a combination code to be keyed to get in, but only for a big green button to be pressed to get out. This struck me as being the wrong way around - almost as if it was the rest of the world that was being locked out rather than … hang on … I may be onto something there …
It wasn’t until a couple of months ago that the combination was required to get out of the ward as well as in. However, they could have picked a more secure combination than “2222″. I mean, only “1234″ would have been less secure.
