Crime & Safety

Motorist Helped Save Missing Woman

A Mt. Lebanon man saw the 82-year-old woman driving erratically near The Galleria.

It didn’t take long for Andy Booth to realize something was very wrong Wednesday night when he saw a black Dodge Charger weaving in and out of traffic on Washington Road near The Galleria.

The Mt. Lebanon resident was heading home around 6:30 p.m. when he saw the driver in front of him straddling the white lines, bobbing from one lane to the other and hitting the curb.

“The whole thing just looked odd,” Booth said, contrasting it from other careless drivers he’s seen around town. “I thought she was having a medical problem or something. I didn’t know what was happening.

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In turned out he was following Verna Hreha, the 82-year-old Jefferson Hills woman . For the next four miles, he followed the woman and feverishly tried to get her to stop, fearing she would be involved in a serious accident.

Booth had not heard news reports about the missing woman, but he blocked other cars from passing and followed the swerving vehicle as it weaved up Route 19 and turned right onto Mt. Lebanon Boulevard.

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As the near misses continued, Booth called 911 and told dispatchers of the increasing danger to other motorists. He gave the dispatcher information on the car and where police officers could find it as he followed the driver through Castle Shannon toward Route 88.

Stopped at the Route 88 red light, Booth told the dispatcher he wanted to get out and try to get the woman off the road. But the dispatcher told him not to get out of the car and endanger himself in the process.

But as they turned left onto Route 88 and traffic increased near the Busy Beaver hardware store, Booth said he couldn’t wait any longer. He blocked the lanes behind her, got out and knocked on her window to ask if she needed help.

“I’m so lost,” the disoriented woman told him.

He told her to pull into a nearby parking lot at the municipal boundary between Castle Shannon and Pittsburgh, where police officers arrived a few minutes later.

“Route 88 was scary as hell. I thought she was going to die,” Booth said. “The dispatcher kept telling me not to get out of the car. But it kept getting progressively worse and we were getting close to Route 51. It just happened. I was afraid for her and that she was going to collide head-on with somebody.”

It wasn’t until he got home later—with his heart still racing from the experience—did he learn from others on Facebook that the woman had been missing since Tuesday afternoon. What surprised him the most was how she was apparently able to drive all over the area in a rented car without raising the suspicion of other motorists.

“I can’t believe I was the only one who saw this, because the drivers who were behind me just wanted to get around,” he said, adding many were honking their horns or flashing their high-beams at him.

The woman’s stepson contacted him via Facebook and thanked him for helping their family. The stepson told him she is at home and doing fine now.

Still, the experience rattled Booth.

“You see a near accident and it shakes you up. I saw a dozen of them over four miles,” Booth said. “My heart was in my throat."

This article first appeared on Chartiers Valley Patch.


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