In order to escape, we had to get past about eight doors, each door with one or two guards. We had to get through the prison’s reception office, cross a small open area, enter and pass through an outer building to reach the last door that led to the street.
This last door was sometimes unlocked because guards and visitors used to go in and out through it, and the police felt confident that no prisoner could ever reach it. I was able to learn which guard held the key to this door, however, just in case it was locked, and I knew where he usually positioned himself.
The doors between our cellblock and the reception area were also usually open because the guards used to walk up and down the corridor, the meal cart and the medicine trolley also had to pass freely through, so we knew that the only real difficulty would be the door to the reception area, the door to enter the outer building, and the last door.
The rest of the doors, we could potentially just sprint through, boxing the guards one by one along the way if it was not possible to evade them.
If we could successfully enter the reception area, we could lock the door behind us, because it could only be opened from the side of reception; this would lock out all the guards in the corridor, and we would only have to contend with whoever was in the main office.
We estimated that there were usually between three to five police in the reception area, along with perhaps one or two higher ranking officers. The police usually sat behind a counter and would not be in a position to stop us if we ran quickly enough out the door.
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