Morning Walk Becomes Daylong Ordeal as Tourist Gets Lost in L.A.

A Japanese tourist who left his Downtown hotel for a 20-minute walk ended up wandering for 13 hours through central Los Angeles, finally being taken to a hospital, where another patient recognized him from news reports, officials said Monday.

“Nurse, nurse! The patient’s all over the television!” the roommate at Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center called out when he saw Toshiharu Sakurai’s photograph on a report about a missing tourist, according to administrative nurse Gene Holloman.

Nurses notified authorities.

Sakurai was undergoing tests Monday at the hospital, Holloman said.

Sakurai, 52, began his New Year’s Day odyssey at 5 a.m. Sunday when he left his room at the Hotel Intercontinental for a stroll, police said. His wife told police that her husband, who is retired, always goes for an early morning, 20-minute walk in their hometown of Osaka.

But instead of returning to the hotel, Sakurai kept going, becoming disoriented and eventually covering nine miles in his trek from Olive Street to the 1100 block of East 93rd Street, police said.

Finally, his behavior prompted passersby to call paramedics early Sunday evening, police said. He was carrying no identification.

His family did not know he was safe and searched all day Monday, finally notifying police, who issued a news release about Sakurai.

Sakurai and his relatives were reunited late Monday after the hospital, alerted to his identity, notified police.

Sakurai, his wife and his sister-in-law and brother-in-law had arrived Thursday in California on a group tour from Japan.