EXCLUSIVE: Elderly woman with dementia wandered after ambulette mistake

JAMAICA, Queens (WABC) -- An elderly woman with dementia was dropped off at the wrong place by an ambulette.

The 89-year-old senior then wandered more than a mile using her walker.

She wasn't discovered missing until a driver noticed her and called police.

Her furious daughter spoke exclusively to Eyewitness News

Brenda Toliver cares for her 89-year-old mother around the clock.

Imagene Patrick has dementia.

So when Toliver goes to work her mother attends a day program for seniors living with the disease.

"She doesn't remember. She doesn't remember things that happen right now. She forgets everything day by day she's not able to take care of herself independently," Toliver said.

Toliver says her mother was picked up by an ambulette driver at her senior housing complex in Jamaica, Queens, Monday morning.

She says the driver dropped her mother off at the wrong building and failed to hand her over to a qualified staff member at Parker Jewish Facility in New Hyde Park.

Ms. Patrick's children don't know what happened during the hour and a half that she was missing, but what they do know is she was found about a mile away by a stranger on this busy street.

"If it had been one of those days that we had last week when it was 95 degrees and she's about 110 pounds, and she's with a walker, she would've passed out and there would've been no way, she would've made it any further," Toliver said.

Rainbow Transportation explained in a statement: "We never leave our clients stranded. This was not a person to person drop-off; was not ordered that way."

Parker Jewish Facility explained that Ms. Patrick, "...didn't arrive as she normally does; we followed policy and contacted family and the transportation company to inform them."

Toliver believes this could have easily ended with a tragedy.

"We send them with these companies because they feel they will be protected and that we don't have to worry, but now I'm so emotional that I'm scared to leave her," Toliver said.