Attendants at the emergency hospital have had lively times with insane people, but the most strenuous time so far was Friday night and yesterday morning with Mrs. Emma Lucas, a demented woman, en route from Los Angeles, Cal., to Toledo, O. The woman was acting suspiciously at the Grand Central depot, Second and Wyandotte streets, and was taken to Central station late Friday night for investigation. When it was seen that she was demented she was transferred to the emercency hospital.
Mrs. Lucas, who is 27 years old, is a large woman and strong. She was confined in the women's ward but in a short while some one discovered her ponderous form climbing over the fence surrounding City Hall park. She had escaped through a window.
Dr. Ralph A. Shiras, who is not large, sallied forth in pursuit He overtook the big woman on Fifth near Delaware street and grabbed hold of her. The woman shook him off with ease and in turn grabbed the doctor. Dragging him along behind as she would a toy wagon she walked nearly to the Wyandotte street depot with the struggling doctor before aid in the form of two policemen who loomed up on the horizon. Emma was subdued and again landed in the women's ward.
Early yesterday morning Mrs. Shiras, who is night nurse at the emergency hospital, was busy attending a case and did not notice Mrs. Lucas. She had entered the operating room and, from a case, secured a large surgical knife. The woman was as sly as a fox, as all insane persons generally are, and in concealing the deadly weapon under her garments she went stealthily back to her ward. Her actions were noticed, however, by a patient and the alarm given.
Mrs. Lucas was made to give up the knife and she was then placed to bed and restraining straps put on her. To this she objected very much and was continually crying to be released. When her breakfast was served yesterday morning the insane woman used the knife sent up with the meal to cut her straps.
Once more the big woman made her escape by a window and was not seen until she was climbing over the fence of City Hall park. Across the street she fairly flew into a clothing store, where she demanded the use of a telephone to call for help, she said.
The stream of doctors, attendants and board of health attaches which followed the demented person would remind one strongly of a chase seen almost weekly in the kinodrome pictures at the Orpheum theater. She was corralled and returned, a restraining strap dangling from one of her feet.
In what was thought to be a lucid interval later Mrs. Lucas told Colonel J. C. Greenman, who looks after the insane for the police, that she had hidden a sum of money in the women's wash room at the Grand Central depot. Colonel Greenman searched for it but found nothing. Mrs. Lucas said that when she arrived here the money was in a stocking and that a woman passenger had advised her to take it out. She said she did so and hid it in the washroom.
