New report directs blame in SF hospital patient's stairwell death

The San Francisco hospital where a patient disappeared last year, only to be found dead 17 days later in an exterior stairwell, should share in the blame with the sheriff's department for "systemic" failures that led to the death, according to new report. Lynne Spalding Ford, 57, disappeared from her San Francisco General Hospital room Sept. 21 and apparently exited a door to the rarely used stairwell. Spalding Ford -- a vivacious British-born mother of two -- was wearing her street clothes and still had electrocardiogram pads on her torso and intravenous access lines in her arms when she went missing.