Elderly Man, Who Crashed Into Truck, Building, Had Health Issues

A 68-year-old Caledonia man allegedly crashed the white van he was driving into a black truck, the side of McDonalds, and almost struck another car at  7:04 p.m. April 22.

According to a report by the Caledonia Police Department, they found the man, who was driving the van, in the parking lot at 5125 Douglas Ave., but the man didn’t stop. When an officer spoke to a manager at McDonald’s they learned the man had gone through the drive-thru and scraped the side of the building with the van. The employee said the man wasn’t “in his right mind while speaking to him” and the driver was speaking to his watch as he was ordering his food.

Police stopped a driver of a black truck, which turned out not to be involved in the crash. However, the driver happened to be the elderly man’s neighbor. The driver of the truck told police the elderly man may have Alzheimer’s disease.

Another police officer stopped the white van and told the elderly man to pull into the Kmart parking lot but he almost struck another car. Police ordered the man to get out of the car. When the man got out of the vehicle, he told police he wasn’t diabetic, not on medications and had not been drinking.

Police spoke to the man’s wife who said he is in the beginning stages of Alzheimer’s disease, her husband hadn’t taken his pills and this may explain his mental alertness and why he was driving recklessly.

No citations were issued.