Crime & Safety

DETAILS: Persistent Motorist Helped Save Missing Woman

A Mt. Lebanon man called police and stopped the 82-year-old woman's car after following her for four miles.

It didn’t take long for Andy Booth to realize that something was very wrong on Wednesday night when he saw a black Dodge Charger weaving in and out of traffic on Route 19 near The Galleria of Mt. Lebanon.

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

“The whole thing just looked odd,” Booth said, contrasting it from other careless drivers that 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 that Booth was following Verna Hreha, an 82-year-old Jefferson Hills Borough woman . For the next four miles, Booth followed Hreha and feverishly tried to get her to stop, fearing that 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 her and followed her swerving vehicle as it weaved up Route 19 and turned right onto Mt. Lebanon Boulevard.

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As near-misses continued, Booth called 9-1-1 and told dispatchers of the increasing danger to other motorists. He gave the dispatcher information on her car and where police officers could find it as he followed the driver through Castle Shannon Borough toward Route 88.

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

But as they progressed along Route 88 and traffic increased near a Busy Beaver hardware store on the border of Castle Shannon and Pittsburgh's Overbrook neighborhood, Booth said that he couldn’t wait any longer. He blocked the lanes behind Hreha, got out and knocked on her window to ask if she needed help.

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

Booth told her to pull into a nearby parking lot, where police officers arrived a few minutes later.

“Route 88 was scary as hell,” Booth said. “I thought she was going to die.

“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 Booth 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 that many were honking their horns or flashing their high-beams at him.

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

Still, the experience rattled Booth.

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

This article originally appeared on the .

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