A mentally disabled man from Welverdiend returned home unharmed after a journey that could easily have caused him to end up in hospital or worse.

Andries Martienus Opperman (56) left his home in Welverdiend on June 30. He told people who know him that he was going to Johannesburg to try to find out more about his late mother’s pension fund.

Opperman is mentally disabled and very vulnerable, and neighbours immediately sought help from the police when they realised that he was missing.

According to a concerned neighbour, Francois du Plessis, Andries was found on July 10 after people spotted him in Potchefstroom.

Another Welverdiend resident, Jurie Ferreira, immediately went to pick Andries up and buy him some food.

Andries, who was just very tired, hungry, and dirty after his excursion, told his helpers that he had hitchhiked to Johannesburg and, when he did not find the pension office, he went to Meyerton as he had remembered that some family had previously stayed there. He then went to Potchefstroom, where he was spotted.

“He promised never to do this again. It is just mercy that nothing happened to him,” says Du Plessis.