Forty-two male mental patients in Tengxian county, Guangxi Province who escaped from their hospital were returned Saturday, a day after they broke out.

The patients treated at Tengxian No.3 Hospital held the hospital staff hostage and seized the keys for the gates, cell phones and cash from the staff in Friday's escape.

Government officers sent crews to patrol the streets in search of the fleeing patients; after they were all found they were sent back to the hospital to continue their treatments.

The story has been widely circulated on social networking sites, with many Web users comparing the incident to the American film One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, saying that the Tengxian case is the real version of the movie, which tells the story of mental patients who attempt to flee from the pains of living at their psychiatric hospital.

Some have joked that the patients must be "normal" if they know how to break out of the hospital, while others are reading into the incident more seriously, saying that protestors could be among the group as earlier media reports claimed that government authorities have sent protestors to psychiatric hospitals to publicly silence them.

gxnews.com.cn