Outside Lee County Correctional Institution Thursday evening
South Carolina corrections officials say an officer who was taken hostage by inmates at a maximum-security prison in Lee County has been freed.
Inmates using contraband cell phones tipped off authorities that the injured officer was being held hostage in a broom closet. Click here to read more from ABC News.
Corrections Department spokesman Clark Newsom said the male officer was freed at about 9:45 p.m. Thursday by armed officers who rushed the dorm at the Lee Correctional Institution.
Newsom said the officer had sustained injuries to his head and arm but walked out on his own before being airlifted to a hospital for treatment and observation.
The officer was taken hostage by inmates in the Chesterfield Dorm unit just before 5 p.m. Thursday. That dorm houses about 100 inmates. The rest of the prison, which houses nearly 1,800 inmates, was placed on lockdown.
Newsom says authorities were trying to determine exactly what happened.A correctional officer was taken hostage for about six hours at the same prison in June.
