Officer taken hostage at Lee County prison is freed
BISHOPVILLE — South Carolina corrections officials say an officer who was taken hostage by inmates at a maximum-security prison in Lee County has been freed.
Corrections Department spokesman Clark Newsom said the male officer was freed at about 9:45 tonight by armed officers who rushed the dorm at the Lee Correctional Institution where he had been held since around 5 p.m. The prison houses nearly 1,800 inmates.
Newsom said the officer had sustained injuries to his head and arm but walked out on his own before being airlifted to a hospital for treatment and observation.
Newsom says authorities were trying to determine exactly what happened.
The incident was contained to just one dorm, which houses about 100 inmates. The rest of the prison remained on lockdown late this evening.
A guard was taken hostage for about six hours at the same prison in June.
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