Family’s Fear Turns to Relief When Disabled Man Is Located

For nearly a week, Roy Dahlstrom searched Santa Ana bus routes, talked to bus drivers and followed leads until they turned cold--all in search of his mentally disabled son who seemingly vanished during one of his first outings alone from a local board-and-care facility.

“In the last day or two, we really felt like something very bad had happened to him, something horrible,” said Dahlstrom, who was joined in the search by several family members.

But about the time the Dahlstrom family was fearing the worst, Long Beach police picked up the hungry and badly sunburned Bob Dahlstrom, who had simply taken the wrong bus out of Santa Ana on June 27 and could not find his way home.

His feet covered with blisters, the 48-year-old man had not eaten in six days and was discovered walking through the Lucky supermarket near the Long Beach Marina, looking longingly at shelves of food.

Because of his haggard appearance, store assistant manager Chuck Keith said he first mistook Dahlstrom for a transient and asked him to leave. But Keith called police Sunday when the strangely quiet and unkept man returned repeatedly over the next few days, always looking at the food.

“I asked him if I could call the police so that he could get some help and something to eat,” Keith said. “He just said, ‘Yeah.’ When the police came, I guess they checked his ID and found out who he was. They got him a cup of coffee and sweet roll and he was gone.”

Roy Dahlstrom said he was elated when the call came from police.

When reunited at the family home in Dana Point, Dahlstrom said his son told him that he had mistakenly boarded a bus that dropped him in Sunset Beach instead of in Santa Ana where was scheduled to attend a county-run class for mentally disabled people.

From Sunset Beach, Roy Dahlstrom said his son spent his time walking and sleeping on benches. Perhaps hindering the family’s search for him, Roy Dahlstrom said, is the fact that his son rarely speaks.

“He won’t talk no matter how hungry he gets,” his father said. “He’s very quiet and he would walk away quickly from a stranger unless somebody pushed the conversation.”