A French man who set out to visit his doctor ended up in another country more than 1,000 miles away after taking a wrong turn. Remarkably, the country where he arrived does not even share a border with France.
The incident occurred last week when the 85-year-old man, whose memory and sense of direction were said to be sound, became so confused by his GPS directions that he drove past his nearby clinic and continued for about 1,500 kilometres into Croatia.
The man, a resident of the village of Châtillon-sur-Thouet in western France, was meant to travel roughly 12 miles to his medical appointment. When he failed to return home after several hours, his family grew concerned and reported him missing to the police, asking that the army assist in locating his mobile phone.
French military authorities later traced the signal of his phone to a hotel in Croatia, some 1,500 kilometres (932 miles) from his home. He had apparently driven for 20 hours, passing through Italy before reaching the southern European nation.
When asked how he had arrived there, the elderly man reportedly replied that he could not understand how it happened, adding that a fault in his GPS system was probably to blame.
