A female patient wandered away from a 115-bed psychiatric hospital in Carlow for up to 90 minutes last week before being located by gardaí and medical staff.
People walking on St Joseph's Road in Carlow at around 2.10 p.m. on August 28th spotted the middle-aged woman, who was wearing a dressing gown and slippers. A number of telephone calls were made to the authorities and the woman was eventually picked up at 3.40 p.m. after strolling through a number of streets appearing confused and disoriented.
A local man phoned gardaí and St Dympna's Hospital before he began to follow the woman to ensure she was safe. The man said he waited for the authorities to turn up but when they did not he followed the patient to ensure she would be recovered.
"She seemed to be on medication or something and there were a lot of people staring at her. She was out of it," the man said.
The woman wandered as far as a housing estate where she knocked on a door a number of times before telling the man she wanted a taxi to her mother's home. When it arrived she refused to get in, fearing it would take her back to St Dympna's.
A Garda patrol car and hospital vehicle eventually picked the woman up on the Palatine Road, about a mile and a half from St Dympna's at 3.40 p.m.