Missing man from Pa. found ‘in bad shape’ in Tuscarawas County hayfield
NEW PHILADELPHIA – A 67-year-old man reported missing in Pennsylvania turned up in a hayfield 125 miles away in Tuscarawas County naked, agitated and in need of help.
Reports from the Tuscarawas County Sheriff’s Office say the man had mental health issues and had not been taking his medication. He had not been seen for three days since a Pennsylvania hospital discharged him on July 2nd.
His wife told local deputies he said he was going to Wheeling, W.V.
A caller on Saturday afternoon reported seeing a naked man in a hayfield on the property on Rice Road in Jefferson Township near New Philadelphia. It took a while for responding deputies to identify the man because he wasn’t making sense and made several threats to kill a deputy. Tuscarawas County Sheriff Orvis Campbell says the man was “in bad shape” – sun-burned, lips dry and cracked, legs torn up by briars, and was possibly suffering from heat exhaustion.
EMS eventually was able to take the man to Union Hospital. Another deputy eventually found his vehicle. A check of the license plate identified the owner as a missing person.
Campbell says the hospital would conduct a mental health evaluation. Further details were not available because of hospital privacy laws.
Campbell says he’s familiar with cases like this. He says his department has had cases where Tuscarawas County residents with mental health issues drive off and end up in places like Georgia without knowing how they got there or where they are.