Robot runs riot at California hospital

Drug dealing dalek driven to distraction

By Team Register • Get more from this author

Posted in Bootnotes, 15th June 2005 13:45 GMT

Free whitepaper – Systems management simplified

Staff and patients at San Francisco’s UCSF Medical Center were left fearful and shaken last week, when a robotic nurse threw off its shackles and went on the rampage.

“Waldo”, a robot used to dispense pills and potions to medical stations at the top notch medical facility, refused to return to the pharmacy to pick up a fresh stash at the end of his rounds, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

Instead, the crazed automaton – reportedly the size of a good-sized TV, which in California means it must be at least the size of the average British garden shed - careened past the drug depository before barging into a room in the hospital’s radiation oncology department where an examination was in progress.

The psychotic pill pusher reportedly refused to leave, sending both doctor and patient fleeing for their lives.

"This is the first time anything like this has happened," a hospital spokesman told the paper. "Our technology folks are going to have to take a look."

Yeah, if they can find him. The ‘bot’s clearly gone bad, and is probably even as we speak cruising the city’s Tenderloin district pushing purloined prescription pain killers, paying off dirty cops and menacing lost tourists.

Even more worryingly, the spokesman said nothing about shutting down Waldo’s two colleagues, dubbed Elvis and Lisa Marie. A terrible accident waiting to happen? We think so. ®