Staff at an indoor football complex teamed up to help an elderly man with dementia who was missing from his Colne Valley care home.
The 72-year-old was seen in a distressed state wandering around the car park at Soccer City at Tandem, Waterloo, yesterday (Mon) evening.
Referee Alan Berry, 65, leisure assistant Andy Thewlis, 31, and apprentice manager Jonny Hoyle, 17, helped calm the man, gave him a drink and something to eat and contacted the police as well as ringing local care homes to see if anyone had been reported missing.
The man had been reported missing after walking out of his care home in the Colne Valley at 11am and had wandered around for almost eight hours on a hot day before he was seen outside Soccer City at about 6.45pm.
Alan, who lives at Bradley and owns Bespoke School Furniture in Mirfield, said: “I arrived to referee and he was in the car park very disorientated.
“We took him inside and sat him down to see if we could help him. We gave him some orange juice and a chocolate bar because we did not know if he had eaten anything during the day.
“It became clear he suffered Alzheimer’s or dementia because he couldn’t remember road, towns or names.”
Andy, who lives at Kirkheaton, began ringing round local care homes and the police to find out if anyone had been reported missing while Mr Berry chatted to the man.
“People with dementia can normally remember things from 50 years ago,” said Alan. “I was asking him about where he used to live and which school he went to get as much information as I could. Eventually, he was able to give me his name.
“We carried on chatting and he was quite relaxed. He wasn’t agitated at all. Alan sat him down and built up a real rapport with him and gained his trust and calmed him down. Alan was the real hero. I phoned the police on the non-emergency number and while I was on hold I was looking for the numbers of local care homes in Almondbury and Moldgreen and so on but they all said no-one was missing. If the lads hadn't brought him in I dread to think what would have happened. He might have carried on walking and anything could have happened."
Jonny said the man had seemed “fairly shook up” when he arrived at Soccer City.
“He did not really know who he was,” he said. “Alan talked to him about his past, trying to jog his memory. I ended up refereeing the game instead of Alan while he talked to him.
“Andy rang the police and was contacting the local care homes to see where the man was from. He rang three or four, but they knew nothing about him. We never expected it to be a care home in the Colne Valley.”
Alan said: “We reckon he had been outdoors for about eight or nine hours. We did what anyone, hopefully, would normally have done, to make sure he was given something to eat and drink.”
A spokesperson for West Yorkshire Police said: “We were called around 6.30pm to reports of a missing 72-year-old man from a residential home in the Colne Valley area. He was safely located at 7.45pm in Tandem, Waterloo.”
