From Turkey comes the odd story of a missing drunk man who joined his own search party without realizing people were looking for him.
According to Daily Sabah, the man is named Beyhan Mutlu, and the search party took place in Bursa, Turkey, in September 2021.
Mutlu had disappeared from northwestern Bursa province’s Inegöl district, the site reported. He turned up when he joined his own search party.
The story went viral on social media. “Thank you, Beyhan Mutlu for making me believe that in this very broken world, someone lost can indeed find themselves,” wrote one Twitter user.
Kendisini arayan arama-kurtarma ekiplerine katılan Beyhan Mutlu,dünya basınında çıkan haberleri yorumladı: “Olan oldu,dünya umrumda değil”
(Katılmamak elde değil)
Here’s what you need to know:
Mutlu Shouted ‘It’s Me’ When He Realized the Search Party Was Looking for Him
Bursa’nın İnegöl ilçesinde, Beyhan Mutlu isimli şahıs, kendisi için başlatılan arama çalışmalarını başkası için zannederek saatlerce kendini aradı.
Ekipler, arama çalışmasıyla ilgili tutanak düzenleyip kayıp şahsı evine bıraktılar.
Eventually, Mutlu realized that the search party was looking for him because people were calling out his name while searching, according to Daily Sabah.
This provoked him to shout out “It’s me,” which led to the disovery that he was not only live and well, but he was also searching for himself.
Daily Sabah reported that Mutlu, 50, had wandered into the forest in Inegöl “while intoxicated and then tried to assist the gendarmerie lead search party who was searching for him.”
BBC reported that his wife and friends had reported him missing. BBC reported that it was unclear whether Mutlu was fined as a result of the wasted resources.
Mutlu, a Construction Worker, Says There Was ‘No Need’ to Report Him Missing
Beyhan Mutlu, a drunk 50-year-old from rural Turkey, spent hours helping a search party look for himself.
Police and volunteers swept through forests calling out Mutlu’s name for hours before right from the middle of the group, he shouted, “Who are we looking for? I am here.”
Mutlu spoke to the Sabah news site about the situation.
“I am a construction worker in Inegöl. I came to Çayyaka to work in construction. I had a few drinks with some friends. I left them around 2 a.m. at night. We were staying at a friends’ villa in an area close to the construction site. I went to one of the villas and slept,” Mutlu explained, according to the site.
“When one of my friends couldn’t find me, he reported me as missing to the gendarmerie. There really was no need for that. I had changed my phone. That’s why the gendarmerie could not reach me when they called. I woke up at around 5 a.m. I thought there was an accident on the road. I saw the search party looking for a missing person. I also took part in the search.”
But he told aa.com.tr that it was all exaggerated, saying, “I went to the place where I was staying to sleep late at night. When the friend who stayed with me couldn’t find me, they called the gendarmerie. I didn’t know anything, I was sleeping. Someone called me in the morning. ‘ They said. So I dressed and went downstairs. Search events were exaggerated, nothing like that happened.”
According to Vaziyet, “In the İnegöl district of Bursa, a person named Beyhan Mutlu searched for himself for hours, assuming that the search efforts initiated for him were for someone else. The teams prepared a report about the search and left the missing person at his home.”
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