Terry Dibert's wife and three children need him back in the present. They're relying on doctors to reverse his bizarre episode of time travel by draining a cyst on his brain.
On June 30, Dibert, 34, left his work as business manager for the Bedford Area School District in central Pennsylvania.He left his car keys and jacket behind and his computer monitor on. No office files were out of place, and no money was missing. He was able to drive off thanks to a spare set of keys hidden under his car, which has yet to be found.
It turns out Dibert was driving toward Fort Bragg, N.C., thinking he was 11 years younger and still training with an Army unit there.
When police arrested him early on July 7 near Jacksonville, Fla., for violating a curfew imposed because of the area's wildfires, he told them his wife was pregnant with his first child - who was born 11 years ago.
Dibert had been feeling tired in recent weeks, said Dr. Henry Shoenthal, and his family blamed job stress. But tests at Altoona Hospital this week revealed the cyst on his brain.
"If there's any mass in the brain, it can work in all kinds of funny ways with thinking and memory," Shoenthal said.
Dibert was to undergo surgery Thursday at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, said his wife, Julie.
She said his spirits are high and she and their children, ages 7 to 11, are "hanging in there."