Man Attempts Escape Through Ceiling of Columbia Presbyterian Hospital

A man arrested by the Port Authority Police Department and checked into the New York-Presbyterian Hospital Emergency Room for monitoring attempted to escape police by climbing into the ceiling of the building Sunday morning.

Estaban Gutierrez, 36, of the Bronx, was apprehended Saturday evening near the George Washington Bridge by officers of the PAPD.

Gutierrez was arrested “on charges of possession of stolen property and also a controlled substance,” Ron Marsico, a Port Authority spokesman, said on Sunday.

On the Saturday night following his arrest, PAPD officers transported Gutierrez to the emergency room area of New York-Presbyterian Hospital for observation.

Gutierrez spent Saturday night at the New York-Presbyterian Hospital and was in a bathroom in the Emergency Room area at 11:50 a.m. Sunday, when he reportedly decided to climb into the ceiling of the facility. He subsequently trapped himself inside a wall of the structure.

Port Authority security officers and the officers from the New York Police Department’s 33rd Precinct soon arrived to thwart Gutierrez’s misguided escape attempt.

“He went up into the ceiling, and it was searched for an hour and 15 minutes or so,” Marsico said Sunday. “He was eventually determined to be on the other side of a sheetrock wall, so they knocked down the wall and there he was.”

A Public Affairs representative for the hospital referred callers to the NYPD’s 33rd Precinct, a representative of which confirmed police involvement in the arrest.

Gutierrez is currently being held for possession of stolen property and possession of a controlled substance, as well as an additional escape charge, Marsico said Saturday.

Calls placed to the Gutierrez household were not answered, and messages were not returned.