The elderly man wandering around the parking lot was confused and vulnerable.
Postal Vehicle Services Operator Earl Armstrong recently encountered him outside the Toledo, OH, Processing and Distribution Center, where he’d apparently driven wearing clothes over his pajamas and carrying a wallet full of cash.
He couldn’t tell Armstrong how to reach family members or caregivers, and the concerned postal employee wanted to make sure the man was safe.
Police officers took the man to a local hospital, followed by Armstrong’s co-worker and wife, Monica, who was the plant employee the man was most comfortable with.
It soon became apparent why, after another co-worker said he recognized the man as a former guard and mail handler who’d worked alongside Monica years ago. That co-worker knew how to reach a member of the man’s family, leading to a reunion.
The plant’s distribution operations manager, Barbra Dickes, believes that the man may have thought he was going to work.
“I would hate to think what could have happened … if anyone besides Earl” had found him anyplace else, she said.