He wasn’t actually dumb, well for a criminal. He was in court and to try and prevent or at least delay the inevitable sentence when he pretended to have a seizure. It turned out that this particular “alleged” criminal was an alcoholic and was in withdrawal – which can indeed be life threatening.
His seizures although astoundingly accurate were just simulated. Had they been witnessed by less experienced staff he might have been treated differently. This particular doctor recognized that it wasn’t genuine and simply told him to stop as he wasn’t really having seizure. She must have been pretty commanding as the patient did stop, well, for the rest of the day.
But if it worked once then it might work again, so the patient started to pretend to have more seizures the next day as well. This time he really threw himself into the role. While pretending to have another seizure he forced himself to fall out of the bed, but those beds are actually pretty tall and rather than risk actually hurting himself he did fall out of character. It is the little things such as holding onto the chair so he wouldn’t actually fall, or when asked to stop he would answer the questions of the nurse. This last one is actually a pretty big give away, when having a seizure you cannot have a conversation with anyone.
One of the patients guards was tired of being stuck at the hospital watching the patient so asked if it was possible to take him back to prison. The doctor was just as tired of this situation and called the prison doctor to see what types of facilities they had and would this patient be a problem. Both of them were quite relieved to find out that the this wouldn’t be a problem, and so came the “big” talk.
Doctor Diana told the patient that he should stop this nonsense as he was no longer in danger due to alcohol withdrawal and tomorrow he will be transferred out either to the prison hospital or simply back to prison. The patient must have really known his German law as the doctor was 100% correct there was no choice unless … he said he would kill himself which is exactly what he did in front of the doctor, nurse and prison guard.
This did bring up a new dilemma, as if a patient is actually a threat to himself the rules change slightly. The hospital psychologist was summoned and confirmed that he was actually serious. Yet this was one situation that the prison hospital was prepared for. The patient probably ended up in a very very plain padded cell, which they actually do have in prison.