Patient Who Escaped from Ambulance Captured in Gloucester County Saturday Night

Update: Just before 7 p.m. on Saturday night, the missing medical patient was located in Gloucester County and is in police custody.

A man who was being committed to a psychiatric facility jumped out of an ambulance on Mercer Street near Quaker Road at about 7 p.m. Friday night.

The man was being taken to the Carrier Clinic via a private ambulance when he escaped, law enforcement sources said.

There were no police charges against the man, but police issued alerts and searched for him because he had a violent history.

The man who escaped was described as a white male 6’2″, 220 lbs, wearing blue scrubs.

Police, a K-9 tracking dog, and a state helicopter searched the Princeton area for the man for a few hours Friday night. With the help of a K-9, police determined that the man had left the Princeton area.

A few area law enforcement sources said Friday night that the man had taken a taxi to Trenton and then headed to Bordentown, and was captured there. A few residents near the border of Lawrence also reported that Lawrence Township patrolmen has told them the man was captured in Bordentown.

But dispatch information and scanner information regarding those details that was passed on by law enforcement to some area residents and a reporter appears to be false. The Princeton Police Department has not confirmed those details as of Saturday afternoon. Top law enforcement officials say the escapee was added to a national database, and police in Princeton would have been alerted if he was captured. Princeton Police believe therefore that the man is still at large, but are confident he has left the Princeton area.

A spokesman for the New Jersey State Police did not have information on the incident Saturday and referred all questions to the Princeton Police Department.