92-year-old with dementia drives 1,000 km across Spain, asks for ham on return
A 92-year-old man with dementia drove 1,000 km from Cádiz to Burgos before being found. Back home, his first request was ham. Who renewed his licence?
English · Original discussion in Spanish · Published
92-year-old grandfather with dementia drove a thousand kilometres
Francisco, a 92-year-old resident of Pueblo Nuevo de Guadiaro (Cádiz) with early-stage dementia, went out for a walk last Sunday. When his family reported him missing, a search was launched in the usual places. No one imagined that the elderly man had got into his car and driven across half of Spain: he turned up in Miranda de Ebro (Burgos), more than 1,000 kilometres away, in the car park of a funeral home, asking how to get to Málaga.
Taken home by ambulance, his first reaction was to ask for ham. The anecdote, however, leaves an uncomfortable aftertaste: how can someone with cognitive impairment drive a thousand kilometres? The case reopens the debate about licence renewals for elderly drivers, an issue Spain's traffic authority, the DGT, has yet to settle.
Some play it down: no one was hurt. But the question of who renewed the licence of someone in that condition remains. The most human note, the one that derails any analysis, came from the man himself: back home, the first thing he asked for was ham.
Francisco, a 92-year-old resident of Pueblo Nuevo de Guadiaro (Cádiz) with early-stage dementia, went out for a walk last Sunday. When his family reported him missing, a search was launched in the usual places. No one imagined that the elderly man had got into his car and driven across half of Spain: he turned up in Miranda de Ebro (Burgos), more than 1,000 kilometres away, in the car park of a funeral home, asking how to get to Málaga.
Taken home by ambulance, his first reaction was to ask for ham. The anecdote, however, leaves an uncomfortable aftertaste: how can someone with cognitive impairment drive a thousand kilometres? The case reopens the debate about licence renewals for elderly drivers, an issue Spain's traffic authority, the DGT, has yet to settle.
Some play it down: no one was hurt. But the question of who renewed the licence of someone in that condition remains. The most human note, the one that derails any analysis, came from the man himself: back home, the first thing he asked for was ham.
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Summary of a discussion on Burbuja.info - Foro de economía, actualidad y política., translated from Spanish and reviewed before publication. Read the full discussion (57 replies).
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