The patient is self-admitted to the emergency room with cuts and bruises all over his body. An ER nurse’s report lists Curtis as having abrasions on both wrists, knees and ankles. He also has wounds on the outside of both arms and legs and on the front, sides and back of his torso. "He’s a bloody mess," the nurse writes in her notes.

How did Curtis get to be such a bloody mess? It all starts with a makeshift tool Curtis uses to pry open the frame around the long and narrow window in his room. The window is made of the nearly indestructible, patented material, "Lexan." The window is several feet long and five inches high. The framed window is built into a concrete block wall.

Even though Curtis is diminutive in size, it staggers the imagination to envision him slipping through a five inch wide opening of jagged concrete block where a window once was.

But that’s what Curtis does-slips through the opening, then drops 12 feet down onto a steeply pitched metal roof. From there he rolls over-and-over toward the edge of the roof where he falls another 12 feet to the ground. From the time Curtis wiggles through the opening in the wall of his room to the time he hits the ground takes about 30 seconds. It’s faster and rougher than any ride at Carowinds.

By now I’m sure you’ve figured out that Curtis is escaping from the county jail. Deputies find the shredded remains of his orange, jail-issue, jump suit in a pile behind bushes near the jail entrance. The pursuing posse figures Curtis must be down to a set of bloodied Jockey shorts by now.

Nobody knows why a driver would stop and pick up a hitchhiker next to the county jail-especially a bloodied hitchhiker wearing nothing but ragged underwear. But somebody does, and Curtis gets a ride to the hospital.

And that’s where deputies find him after the ER nurse, playing a hunch, calls 911 and describes her latest patient.

Curtis isn’t upset about being recaptured. "I wasn’t going nowhere," he says, "I just needed a change of scenery for a little while."