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Woman Uses Rope Ladder To Escape Pine Mental Health Facility

PEMBROKE PINES (CBSMiami) - A helpful accomplice and a bit of athleticism helped a woman escape from the South Florida State Hospital in Pembroke Pines.

Genevieve Mittermaier had been involuntarily committed to the mental health facility via a court order.

Tuesday afternoon around 4 p.m. workers at the facility remembered seeing Mittermaier, 47, on a cell phone shortly before a black car parked nearby.

A man got out, walked over to the security fence and through a rope ladder over the fence.

Mittermaier used the rope to scale the fence to freedom. She then got into the car with the man and pair drove off.

David Sankey
David Sankey (Source: Pembroke Pines Police)

Mittermaier's accomplice is believed to be 55-year-old David Sankey. The two are thought to be traveling in a 2001 Black BMW four-door with California license plate number "4RQL732".

Pembroke Pines police said it's not clear what sort of relationship Mittermaier had with the man.

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