The man, in his 30s, escaped from his bed in Yanbu General Hospital and hijacked a bulldozer from a construction site after kicking out its driver.
“He stormed into Yanbu General Prison after crashing the outer main gate and attacked the guard post in the jail,” Al-Madinah daily reported on Tuesday.
He then proceeded to the nearby office of the Yanbu Anti-Narcotic Department and damaged six cars parked in front of it, said the Arabic-language newspaper.
He also demolished the guardhouse of the office and then sped off down the main street in the opposite direction of the one-way road, creating panic and confusion among road users.
Narcotic inspectors chased him in a car and were soon joined by a heavy police team. Subsequently, the insane man drove down the airport road. He was stopped shortly before entering the airport.
While attempting to physically overpower the man, a narcotic officer sustained facial injuries, the report said.
The man, who had been admitted to hospital by the Red Crescent and a police patrol on Saturday, ran away while doctors tried to send him to a mental hospital in Madinah after detecting an aggressive tendency in him.
Madinah Hospital for Mental Health, however, refused to take him for lack of room. Then doctors in the Yanbu hospital kept him under control with sedatives, because he had tried to escape from the hospital many times.
Before finally running away on Monday, the man had broken a computer and some medical equipment, attacked patients in the ward, and spat at duty nurses and doctors.
“The Yanbu police took the overpowered man straight to a mental hospital in Madinah under heavy guard,” said director of the Health Affairs Department in Yanbu Abdul Rahman Al-Saeedi.
“Police overpowered the violent man after puncturing the tires of his bulldozer with gun shots,” said spokesman for Madinah police Maj. Muhammad Al-Johani, adding that the incident was still being investigated.
