SAN GABRIEL >> A an elderly woman with dementia who wandered away from a San Gabriel medical facility Wednesday turned up in Monterey Park with a serious head injury early Thursday morning, officials said.
Carol Abe Garfield, 79, disappeared about 2:15 p.m. Wednesday from the San Gabriel Valley Medical Center’s Geriatric Behavioral Medical Center, 438 W. Las Tunas Drive, San Gabriel police officials said in a written statement.
“Garfield was able to walk out of the secured facility and leave the hospital,” according to the police statement.
Garfield, a Studio City resident who is unfamiliar with the San Gabriel Valley, was last seen walking south on Santa Anita Avenue toward Broadway.
She turned up about 3 a.m. Thursday at Garfield Medical Center in Monterey Park, suffering from a “relatively severe,” head injury, San Gabriel police Lt. Fabian Valdez said. Further details regarding how and where Garfield was injured or how she was transported to the Monterey Park hospital were not available.
Garfield was transferred to a Los Angeles hospital for further treatment, Valdez said. An update on her condition was unavailable.
PHOTO courtesy of the San Gabriel Police Department.