NEWPORT NEWS, Va. (WAVY) — Latoya Thomas says the H.U.F. Center has some explaining to do after her uncle went missing for more than eight hours.
She told 10 On Your Side her uncle, Steve Arline, has autism and is driven home to Smithfield from the adult behavioral health center everyday.
But early Thursday morning, he was found almost an hour away in downtown Suffolk, lying on the sidewalk in 30-degree weather.
Thomas said it was her mother who first noticed something was wrong.
Arline usually gets home around 12:30 p.m. to 1:00 p.m., but he was nowhere to be found.
She said H.U.F. staff told her Arline was put into a black Kia driven by a Lyft driver.
So, her cousin went to the center looking for answers.
“She asked them what their signing and procedures like their protocols were,” Thomas said. “She stated that there was no log.”
Then, they asked to see the surveillance footage from outside.
“You initially tell us it’s illegal,” Thomas said. “What’s illegal to ask for it? Then you say, ‘Oh, well, we can’t go back. It’s only live for this. We don’t have an SD card.'”
She described an agonizing day of making several calls to authorities from Newport News, Smithfield and to many others.
That was until about eight hours later, around 12:15 a.m., when Suffolk Police said he was found on West Washington Street.
Thomas said she was heartbroken by some of the first words her uncle said to her when she came to pick him up.
“He said, ‘I’m cold and I’m hungry,'” Thomas said. “And she told me she found my uncle outside, asleep on a sidewalk, and nobody took the initiative or anything to reach out, to do anything different.”
She said she has tried time and time again to reach back out to The H.U.F. Center with no luck.
So, 10 On Your Side called them to get their side of the story.
They said, “no comment” and quickly hung up the phone.
Thomas said her uncle keeps saying sorry.
“He’s apologizing and he’s done nothing wrong,” Thomas said. “Keeps saying ‘I’m sorry’. For what? You did nothing wrong. They did. This is not over. This is just the beginning, because change needs to occur.”
She said her uncle won’t be going back to the center, and she hopes this never happens to anyone else’s loved ones.
10 On Your Side reached out to Lyft. It said it could not locate any reports of the incident.