An Arizona family is grateful to three convenience store clerks in Carrizozo, New Mexico, for rescuing an elderly man suffering from dementia.
“Well, when he first got here, he had come in and said that he was lost, and he was trying to get to Chinle, and we didn’t know where that was,” Melissa Zamora, a store clerk at Valero gas station, told KRQE News.
When Vietnam veteran Wilson Shirley, 80, came into her store, Zamora knew right away something was wrong. After initially leaving the store, Shirley came back a second time, when clerks saw he was confused and needed assistance.
“I said jokingly at first, I hope this man is not a victim of a Silver Alert,” Zamora said, according to KRQE News.
The clerks charged Wilson’s dead phone, eventually started making calls from it and learned he was indeed a subject of a Silver Alert. When Wilson’s family was reached, their prayers were answered. His family believes Wilson got into his car in Round Rock, Arizona, on Jan. 10 and drove to visit family in Albuquerque. That’s when he got lost. The Navajo Nation Police Department issued a Silver Alert that same day.
The store clerks said they also have family members who suffer from dementia, and they understand the stress the family was going through.
“I think we were just kind of genuinely happy to be in the right place at the right time. And like I said, we got to meet a beautiful soul, and that was nice, that was good,” Valero store clerk Dominique Zamora told KRQE News.
Shirley's family was grateful to those who helped bring him home.
A family statement said: “We would like to thank family and friends for their efforts, thoughts and prayers. A big thank you to Officer Benally with the Navajo Nation Police Missing Persons Department. We believe he went above and beyond his call of duty. Thank you, Lincoln County Sheriff’s department. Also New Mexico’s state troopers, city police and all the sheriff's departments for participating in this search. Now, we want to send a huge thank-you to the citizens of New Mexico. Without your help, we would have not found our father, especially the three clerks at Valero gas station: Dominique, Melissa and Selma Zamora. The three clerks who took action after noticing our dad was confused. If not for any of these agencies and people, I believe this could have been a different outcome.”
