By Rick Karlin
Times Union
ALBANY, N.Y. — David Sweat arrived Sunday night at Albany Medical Center where he will undergo medical treatment for the two gunshots that ended his flight from authorities.
As he recovers, Sweat will be held at the hospitals secure ward, handcuffed to a hospital bed and under constant watch by state prison guards.
The hospital was under “lockdown” Sunday night in anticipation of the arrival of escaped killer who was shot and apprehended Saturday near the Canadian border.
A convoy of State Police accompanied the ambulance carrying Sweat. People on the street cheered and clapped as the vehicles past on New Scotland Avenue.
A few moments later, a person in the crowd quipped: “Elvis has left the building.”
The state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision operates the hospital’s secure ward. Prisoners are not kept in cells but rather cuffed and shackled to hospital beds. The ward is locked behind a secure door.
State correction officers are on constant duty. When local sheriff’s departments send their own prisoners for care they also send guards to help watch those prisoners.
“They are going to have an army of state CO’s there tonight,” Sheriff Craig Apple said Sunday.
Once Sweat is deemed healthy, he’ll be returned to the state prison system. It is unlikely that he’ll be headed back to Clinton Correctional Facility.
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©2015 the Times Union (Albany, N.Y.)