His freedom didn’t last long.

An Opa-locka man who walked out of the Miami-Dade County Jail after being accidentally released was captured hours later at a local emergency room.

Dexter Davis, 36, was arrested at the University of Miami Medical Center’s emergency psychiatry ward, police spokesman Napier Velazquez said Wednesday. A hospital employee recognized Davis, whose picture had been widely aired on TV news, and called police just after 10 p.m. Tuesday.

Hospital officials did not release information about what Davis was seeking at the ward or his condition. But 15 hours after he had ambled out a free man, Davis, who was convicted Monday of stabbing his ex-girlfriend, was back at the facility where he had spent the past year.

A corrections spokeswoman, Janelle Hall, said an internal affairs investigation was ongoing into how Davis escaped.

“We are glad that he is back, obviously,” she said.

The mistaken release might have gone unnoticed had the Opa-locka detective who originally investigated Davis not coincidentally driven by the Miami jail and seen a man resembling Davis sauntering down the street.

The detective called the Miami-Dade state attorney’s office, whose prosecutors realized Davis had been mistakenly released. It was the latest embarrassment for the facility, which a federal investigation in August criticized for its poor conditions.

Davis, who has a long rap sheet including stints in prison for burglary and cocaine possession, was convicted hours before his release for stabbing his ex-girlfriend about 10 times in front of her two children.

He left the 14-inch butcher knife stuck in her arm.