An elderly man unknown to them appeared outside the home of a married couple from Trzebień, carrying two buckets of mushrooms. He looked as if he were waiting for someone. He was confused and frightened. As the wait grew longer, the couple asked the newcomer what had happened.
“It turned out that the man had got lost in the forest,” the wife recounts. “He had come with a friend who brought him by car. The man had neither a phone nor any contact number to use in case he got lost. He did not know where he was or where the car might be. He could only say that they had crossed railway tracks and passed a forester’s lodge,” the woman adds.
The man did not want to accept their hospitality because he kept hoping that his friend was looking for him, would see him and take him home. The couple decided to notify the police.
“While we were waiting for the police, we began asking the man who he had come mushroom picking with,” the woman recounts. “It turned out that his friend was the president of a beekeepers’ association. By deducing and asking people questions, we managed to pick up the trail of the beekeepers’ association. My husband called beekeepers and managed to obtain the lost man’s friend’s phone number. He called and informed him that the person he had lost was waiting in Trzebień. To our surprise, his friend replied that he was already near Wołów and that the lost elderly man should hitchhike home. My husband asked how he could leave a person in the forest like that. He was told that the disappearance had been reported to the forester,” the woman says.
The couple decided to drive the lost man to the railway station in Bolesławiec, buy him a ticket to Trzebnica, and that is what they did. The man was escorted to the platform, given the tickets and travelled home. In the meantime, the police arrived.
“What surprised us was that the police had not received a report from Wierzbowa about the disappearance. The moral of this story is to warn everyone who goes into the forest to always carry a phone or a contact number. Above all, do not trust companions who leave you in the forest,” the woman adds.