A prisoner recovering from penis enlargement surgery broke out of a hospital in Thailand on Saturday.

Theft convict Thanaphat Mayod, 37, was admitted to the Bang Lamung Hospital in Chonburi province on December 6 when his genitals swelled painfully due to penis enlargement injections that became infected.

Despite the severe swelling, Thanaphat managed to hatch a daring escape plan which he enacted in the early hours of December 9.

He had his wife Wasana Kuaysuwan, 30, smuggle in a pair of steel cutters, and used the tool to break the restraints chaining him to the hospital bed while hiding behind the curtain dividers.

With a catheter still attached to his penis, he left the room on the seventh floor, and was caught on CCTV hobbling through the hospital corridors undetected. He then took a lift to the ground floor and left the building through a window.

However, Thanaphat's freedom was short-lived as he was found by police 28 hours later on December 10, hiding under a black bag while huddled on the rooftop of the hospital's psychiatric ward just 20 metres away from the surgical ward.

He was taken to the emergency room as he was in a poor condition, with agonising pain coming from his manhood, where silicone filler had been injected.

The runaway patient told authorities he was driven to commit the jailbreak 'because he missed his family.'

He said: 'I had the penis enlargement operation before I went to jail. It became infected because I couldn't care for it. I just saw the opportunity to escape from the hospital, because I wanted to see my wife again.'

Thanaphat allegedly admitted to borrowing another patient's phone to tell his wife to bring the steel cutters. He said he fled behind the building and climbed up a power post to the top of the psychiatry ward after a security guard saw him.

Officials said Thanaphat will be charged for attempting to escape prison, while his wife Wasana was detained for helping an inmate escape.

Meanwhile, Sahakarn Petchanarin, Deputy Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Justice and acting Director-General of the Department of Corrections, said: 'A committee has been created to examine the facts. We will investigate how the prisoner was able to escape.

'As for the two guards guarding the prisoner, they are also being investigated and we expect the results to come out soon. The work of both men continues to normally until the results are released.'