Elderly Man Found After 3-Day Disappearance : Ventura: Gordon Ellis’ son discovers him in a field, suffering from exposure. An aftershock may have frightened him.

An 82-year-old Ventura man, who apparently wandered outdoors barefoot for more than three days after an earthquake aftershock last week, was recovering Tuesday in a Ventura hospital, but family members said he may lose his toes.

Gordon Ellis, who walked away from his home early Thursday wearing only pants and a T-shirt, has badly bruised and swollen feet, said his son, Elwyn Ellis.

The younger Ellis said doctors fear they may have to remove toes because of damage caused by prolonged exposure.

“My dad had been really upset with the earthquake,” Ellis said. “On Wednesday he was upset about the aftershocks. He kept saying, ‘I want to go home’ ” to Texas.

Ellis found his father Sunday morning, incoherent and lying on the ground in an isolated field west of San Jon Road near the ocean, several blocks from his father’s Meta Street home near downtown Ventura.

“I first saw his feet and I knew it was him,” Ellis said. “I said, ‘Dad’ and he raised his hand. ‘I found you,’ I said.”

Ellis said his father’s temperature had dropped to 92 degrees and he had lost his glasses and his false teeth.

“I ran for help and called the police,” Ellis said.

Gordon Ellis was taken to Community Memorial Hospital, where he was in good condition Tuesday.

Elwyn Ellis said his father, a widower and retired plumber, frequently suffers from confusion and forgetfulness. The son has not been able to learn where the elderly man was during the time he was missing.

Gordon Ellis’ brother-in-law, Ernest Windham, said he last saw him at midnight Wednesday. When he tried to check on him again two hours later, the elderly man was not in the house they share.

Windham said he frequently checks on his brother-in-law in the middle of the night because the older man stays up through the night and wanders around the house.

“He is very forgetful,” Windham said.

Windham immediately reported his brother-in-law’s disappearance to police. The next day Windham and other family members were out distributing flyers throughout Ventura and Oxnard.

They feared that Gordon Ellis may have gone looking for a train station to return to Texas, where he lived for 30 years before coming to Ventura.

Ventura police and 10 other people helped Elwyn Ellis search for his father. “We went everywhere looking for him, including the hobo jungle area where the homeless people hang around,” Elwyn Ellis said, referring to the Ventura River bottom.

He said the most disappointing moment came Saturday night when he got a prank call saying his father was at a restaurant in downtown Ventura.

Gordon Ellis was one of five elderly people reported missing after the Jan. 17 earthquake and aftershocks, said Mary Randall, a crisis supervisor at the Ventura County Mental Health Department. All have been found, she said.