Amnesic Woman Starts to Pick Up the Pieces

A New Mexico woman suffering from severe amnesia was unable to recognize her three teenage children at a tearful reunion in Oklahoma on Friday, more than a month after her family reported her as missing.

“They cried. . . . I wondered what I did to make them cry,” a slightly bewildered Tina Martinez told Reuters after the reunion with her children and her sister.

Martinez, 37, also spoke by telephone with her husband, Jerry, and said she probably would return to the family home in Albuquerque, even though the prospect seemed a little daunting.

“I feel like I was just dropped on the planet . . . but I need to start somewhere, no matter how scary it is,” she said.

Martinez has lived in a women’s shelter in Ada, Okla., about 90 miles southeast of Oklahoma City, while authorities tried to figure out who she was and from where she came.

The U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs took charge of the case because her appearance led officials to believe she was a Native American. In fact, she is part Latino and part Apache.

The woman was dropped off near Springer, Okla., on Aug. 19 by a truck driver who told a store clerk to call for help because she was bleeding from a head wound, officials said.

She was unable to recall her name or the names of anybody she knew, although she wore a wedding ring and bore scars from delivery of one or more children by caesarean section.

Under hypnosis, she indicated that she might have been involved in a car crash, although she did not provide enough details to help trace her identity, officials said.

Authorities established contact with her family after a distant relative read a story about Martinez and saw her picture in the Tulsa World newspaper.