DOWNTOWN : Lost Tourist Rejoins Family After Ordeal

A Japanese tourist was reunited with his family after disappearing for two days early last week.

Toshiharu Sakurai, 52, left the Intercontinental Hotel on Jan. 1 for his daily 20-minute stroll but, unfamiliar with the area, he lost his way and ended up wandering city streets for 13 hours.

The Osaka native was taken to Martin Luther King Jr.-Drew Medical Center that evening after paramedics received a report that a man was acting strangely and picked him up on South 93rd Street, police said.

Sakurai’s relatives, here on vacation, called police when he didn’t return from his 5 a.m. walk and began searching for him. An appeal was made on the television news requesting that anyone who had seen Sakurai to please contact authorities.

On Monday, a patient at King-Drew Medical Center looked at the television screen and looked at his roommate.

“Nurse, nurse! The patient’s all over the television!” the man called out, said Gene Holloman, a nurse.

Sakurai was reunited with his family that night.

He remained at the hospital in guarded condition for two days and was released in good condition Wednesday, according to hospital administrators. They declined to disclose any other information on Sakurai, saying only that he had been suffering from “prior conditions.”

Hospital staff didn’t initially know who he was because he didn’t have identification, didn’t speak English and was too confused to communicate with an interpreter.