Couple rescue shirtless, elderly man from middle of road

The elderly man was only wearing shorts and struggling to stand when a passing driver saw him.

LOST: Emma Lester was driving with her partner Matthew Taber and baby Benji when she saw an elderly man wandering in the middle of Edward St, Laidley.

"HE WAS dead smack in the middle of the road."

Emma Lester, 20, is sure her car's high beam light was the reason she was able to see an elderly man in the middle of the road.

The Laidley woman had been driving with her partner, Matthew Taber, and one-year-old Benji about 6.30pm last night when she spotted the man wandering on Edward St, Laidley.

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The man, who turned out to be a dementia patient at a Laidley aged care facility, was struggling to stand and wearing just shorts, despite the chilly weather.

"If you're driving along and there's an old man, struggling to stand up, with shorts on … I thought that's just not right," Emma said.

"I pulled over and put my window down and asked if he was all right as he looked a bit lost and he said 'no'."

Emma asked him where he was meant to be and offered to give him a lift.

"He said he was supposed to be in Gatton," she said.

"But the more I talked to him, the more I realised he probably had dementia."

Emma figured he had wandered off from the hospital or a nearby nursing home but drove the man to the Gatton address he gave her.

"Chances are, his memory has taken him to that house for a good reason, maybe family - someone will know where he is supposed to be," Emma said.

The family drove the man the 20km trip to Gatton and, knocking on the door, learnt the man's relatives lived there.

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The relatives were shocked to see the man and told Emma he had been living at a nursing home in Laidley.

"We walked back down the stairs and I helped him into the car and put his seatbelt on," she said.

"He could barely walk - I don't know how he got out of the home."

After Emma dropped the man off at the aged care facility, the man's daughter Christina Thwaites took to social media to express her thanks.

"I would like to thank the young lady who picked up my father … Thank you so much," Christina said in a post on the Lockyer Valley and Surround Traffic Report Facebook page.

Read more stories by Ebony Graveur.

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