Family Suing American Airlines After Man With Alzheimer's Goes Missing From LaGuardia
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- A family is suing American Airlines after a man stricken with Alzheimer's disease went missing earlier this year.
The family spent three nightmarish days searching, hoping and praying that the man would be OK. He was eventually found 25 miles away in Brooklyn.
The ordeal began, the New York Daily News reported, after Josaphat Dupuy, 52, was diagnosed with Alzheimer's last year and the family decided it was best for him to move back to his native Haiti to be cared for by family members.
But after his daughter, Keraphline Dupuy, took him to LaGuardia Airport to board the flight, she said she told the American Airlines attendant about her father's condition.
"We put him in a wheelchair with the attendant, watching him get to the gate," she said. "And that was the last time we saw my dad."
Hours later, it was discovered that her father never boarded the flight and was missing.
After he was found, Dupuy was so sick he had to be hospitalized for two weeks.
The family's attorney called the incident a "textbook case of negligence."
American Airlines says it does not comment on pending litigation.