Missing from hospital for 17 days, stepped over TWICE by orderly, in stairwell where found dead. [View all]

[Jesus Malverde]

S.F. General worker had reported a woman in stairwell

A worker at San Francisco General Hospital reported seeing an unconscious woman in a fire-escape stairwell one week before the body of a missing patient was found in the same spot, according to sources familiar with the investigation into the patient's death.

Lynne Spalding, 57, disappeared from her room on the hospital's fifth floor Sept. 21, two days after she was admitted for treatment of an infection. Her body was found Oct. 8 on the fourth-floor landing of the locked stairwell.

The cause of death has not been determined, but police believe Spalding had been dead for several days and was not the victim of foul play, said the sources, who have knowledge of the police investigation but are not authorized to speak publicly.

According to the sources, a hospital orderly told a nurse Oct. 1 that he had seen a woman, apparently passed out, on the fourth floor of the stairwell. The orderly said he had stepped over the prone woman twice, once going downstairs and again when he returned to the fifth-floor door that he had used to enter the stairwell.

The nurse contacted the Sheriff's Department, the sources said. Sheriff's deputies provide security at San Francisco General.

http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/S-F-General-worker-had-reported-a-woman-in-4909031.php

She had been hospitalized for a UT infection/ on antibiotics when she went missing.