December 22, 2016
An 89-year-old man who suffers from dementia has been reunited with his family after a wrong turn landed him hundreds of miles away from home.
Jody Tarbutton had plans to drive to the Walmart in Boothwyn, Delaware County, on Saturday but the bad weather made him take a wrong turn, WVTM13, an Alabama news station, reported Tuesday. Tarbutton kept on driving without his cell phone and made it all the way down to Haleyville, Alabama.
In an effort to find his way back home, Tarbutton asked a police officer inside an Alabama restaurant for help.
"Man said I drove 900 miles and I don't remember,” Tarbutton told the station.
Cindy Gatta, Tarbutton's daughter, initially posted a plea to Facebook on Sunday in "a desperate attempt to locate my 89-year-old dad who suffers from dementia."
She said she reported him missing to police around 12:30 p.m. Saturday.
But come Tuesday, she provided an update that he had been found and they were about to board a flight back north.
Gatta called his safe return a "Christmas miracle."
