MALONE, N.Y. — The escaped murderer who was shot by a state trooper near the Canadian border is in "critical but stable" condition at an Albany hospital, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Monday.
Cuomo told CNN that David Sweat initially was listed in stable condition but was downgraded to critical after being flown to Albany Medical Center on Sunday night.
Sweat is one of two prisoners who escaped from a maximum-security New York prison three weeks ago. The other escapee, Richard Matt, was killed in a confrontation with law enforcement Friday.
Cuomo said Sweat had a bag containing maps, tools, bug repellent and Pop Tarts when he was shot twice by Sgt. Jay Cook on Sunday afternoon in a farm field less than two miles from the border in Constable, New York.
The daring escape from Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora was "done with facilitators, it was done with cooperators," Cuomo said.
Some of the same state troopers who'd been hunting down the convicts since their escape found themselves scrambling to get the lone survivor to a hospital, hoping to make him well enough to share the tale of how the pair managed to escape and stay on the run for so long.
Sweat, 35, was shot and captured Sunday afternoon when a single state police sergeant spotted a suspicious man walking on a rural road in Constable, near the Canadian border.
His capture came two days after Matt was killed in Malone, just south of Constable, while holding a shotgun. Sweat was unarmed when he was shot twice by Sgt. Jay Cook as the fugitive ran for a tree line.