Seattle police are calling it one of the boldest attempted drug thefts they have ever seen.
A woman impersonating a nurse while possibly addicted to painkillers in on the run today after creeping through the hospital rooms of patients and trying to steal medication from their IV machines.
'It's pretty unusual, pretty brazen,' Seattle police spokeswoman Renee Witt said on Wednesday. 'It really shows how desperate this woman is and how powerful addiction can be.'
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Impersonator: Police are looking for this woman whom they say has been impersonating a nurse while trying to steal pain medicine from the IV lines of two patients in a Seattle hospital
Bold: The woman seen on video surveillance walking through the hospital hallways entered at least two patients' rooms to slice the IV lines before an alarm finally made her scramble away
The woman dressed in a blue shirt resembling scrubs and clogs on her feet entered a man's room at Swedish Medical Center in Seattle on April 13 and began fiddling with his pain medication IV machine.
'He woke up and confronted her and she says, "Oh I’m going to go get your nurse." Then she left the room and didn’t return,' Seattle detective Renee Witt told Q13 Fox.
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When the man's real nurse came into the room, she noticed his IV line had been cut and pain medication was dripping on the floor.
The machine had pry marks, where the intruder apparently had tried to access pain medication, police said.
Shortly afterward, the same woman was spotted on another floor of the hospital peering into patient rooms, Witt said.
Fake nurse tries to steal meds from IVs
Daring: Police say the woman appeared confident both in talking to hospital staff at Swedish Medical Center (pictured) and in walking into patient rooms, even when confronted for her behavior
When confronted by a hospital staff member she said she was there to check the IV machines.
The woman boldly then went into a room and again tinkered with a patient's IV machine, police said.
She left when an alarm went off, leaving a relative of the patient noticing blood dripping on the floor.
They saw that lines to the patient's IV machine had been cut.
Witt said neither patient suffered any injuries and the only thing stolen was about 2 feet of tubing from the patient-controlled medication machines and possibly very little pain medication from the tubes.
Police said the woman appeared confident both in talking to hospital staff and in walking into patients' rooms.
The hospital didn't report the woman to police until four days later, according to King5 News.
Authorities released images of the woman on Wednesday and asked for the public's help in identifying her.