Score one for Mother Nature

Inmate Robert Vick Escapes Prison, Turns Himself Back Because It’s Freezing



By Doris Quintanilla, Tue, January 07, 2014




Kentucky temperatures are so bad right now that they are enough to make an escaped prison inmate turn himself back into jail.

Authorities say inmate Robert Vick escaped from a minimum-security facility in Kentucky on Sunday, but regretted his decision as soon as temperatures dropped into the low single digits on Monday.

The 42-year-old escaped convict walked into the Sunset Motel and Restaurant Monday night and asked the clerk to call the police.

Lexington police spokeswoman Sherelle Robberts says Vick, of Hartford, told the clerk he wanted to turn himself back into the Lexington prison facility because the chilling temperatures outside were too much.

Roberts says Vick was checked out by paramedics and treated for hypothermia. He then returned to the Blackburn Correctional Complex.

Wind chill readings were 20 below zero Monday in Lexington.

Vick was serving a six-year sentence for burglary and criminal possession of a forged instrument at the time of his escape.

Vick would have been dressed in prison-issued khaki pants, a shirt and a jacket when he escaped, according to Department of Corrections spokeswoman Lisa Lamb.
Authorities say there have been a total of 15 deaths so far due to the cold, 11 of them from traffic accidents. A patient at the University Hospitals Case Medical Center in Cleveland died partly due to hypothermia, hospital spokesman George Stamatis told CNN.

Sources: New York Daily News, Seattle Post Intelligencer, CNN