On September 19, 2013, 57-year-old Lynne Spalding was admitted to San Francisco General Hospital for a bladder infection. Last seen in her hospital room on September 21, she was found dead in a stairwell at the hospital on October 8th. Her body was discovered on the fourth-floor of a rarely-used exterior stairwell by a member of the hospital's staff. A different staff member saw a body in the stairwell and reported it to security prior to October 8, but the report was never followed up.
During the 17 days she was missing, her family scoured the city and passed out thousands of fliers. Although several searches were conducted of the 24-acre hospital campus, the stairwell where the incident occurred was never searched. Security video was not immediately available for review, and surveillance video coverage in the hospital was scarce. As a result of the incident the hospital reviewed technical problems with the security surveillance equipment and camera placement, policies and procedures were reviewed and daily patrols of fire exit stairwells was implemented and the hospital hired an independent consultant to investigate the hospital's security and search protocols.