Patrick Bailey Sr. was a victim of the recent CrowdStrike outage. His family has been desperately searching for him, following clues from Orlando westward. Delta Airlines is happy to hear that their 83-year-old passenger made it home safe to Northern California, a full week after his flight was canceled. While they aren’t responsible for his safety, since he never boarded a plane, they share some blame for inability to fly him home. The elderly gentleman apparently chose to leave the driving to Greyhound but the family couldn’t track him down anywhere along the route. Somebody used his debit card but nobody could tell if it was him.
CrowdStrike outage leads to Silver Alert
The July 19 CrowdStrike outage was only the beginning for Patrick Bailey Sr. and his family. The 83-year-old had been visiting his sister in Orlando, Florida.
He was set to fly home on Sunday, via Delta, when his flight was canceled, along with everyone else’s. Now that he’s reported safely home we can call what happened next an adventure, instead of a tragedy.
The family was at a “loss to figure out how to find him” because he had left his cell phone at his hotel. After learning his flight was canceled by the global technology outage, the Navy vet and former long-haul truck driver “checked into a hotel for the night.”
FOUND SAFE 👍 Patrick Bailey, the 83-year-old man who had been missing for a week in Florida is reportedly "in good health" in California, Orlando police said.
Visit our website to find out why people haven't heard from him in a week! https://t.co/u0TFY824E8
— 10 Tampa Bay (@10TampaBay) July 29, 2024
After tracking showed it never left the premises, staff found it in the lobby. His son reported him missing. We now know he “later bought a bus ticket that passed through Louisiana, Texas and New Mexico.” He cleared that up when he made it home.
Somebody used Mr. Bailey’s debit card at a Wendy’s restaurant in Louisiana. As of Saturday, investigators were still trying to get their hands on the security video to see if it was him who used it. Meanwhile, he never checked in with his relatives.
“Nobody got any notices about him getting home. Nobody had heard from him,” his son noted nervously. The outage was one thing but the misplaced cell phone started the big mystery.

Lost without technology
One thing is certain, the CrowdStrike outage proves how reliant modern society is on high tech gadgetry. Pat Bailey Jr. had a total meltdown when his dad lost his raprod. “The problems really started because he forgot his cell phone at the hotel, and we really don’t have any other ways of communicating with him or finding out where he is at.”
Pat Sr. made it through half his life before “communicators” came off the set of Star Trek into reality. His father likely grew up in a home with no electricity at all. If grandpa was lucky enough to enjoy power and indoor plumbing, great grandpa certainly didn’t. Pat Sr. may be in similar mental shape as Joe Biden but that doesn’t mean he’s not resourceful enough to make it home on his own.
Dad had recently been “hospitalized with a back injury.” Junior’s glad “his dad didn’t attempt to make the trek home with a rental car.” He wouldn’t be “physically up for the drive of going all the way across the country.”
UPDATE: Patrick Bailey has been located in Sacramento, CA in good health. After not being able to make his flight out of OIA, he decided to take a Greyhound bus across country and return home. Bailey was unaware he left his phone at his hotel in Orlando until he was on the bus. https://t.co/OLfxx2Sdl2
— Orlando Police (@OrlandoPolice) July 29, 2024
Despite the outage and loss of a cell phone late Sunday afternoon he was reported home. Orlando police reported it on social media.
Mr. Bailey “decided to take a Greyhound bus across the country to return home. He was reportedly unaware he had left his phone in Orlando until he was on the bus.” His son was ready to drop everything and run to meet his dad wherever he was found. Now, he’ll get to spend some quality time with dad he wasn’t sure he’d get to enjoy.
Before dad checked in from home, his son told the press “hopefully, this is all going to end well and we’re going to find him, but it is a reminder that time is fleeting.” Maybe something good came out of the CrowdStrike outage, after all.