14/07/2018
100-year-old tortoise missing for a week is found a mile away after 0.006mph getaway🐢🐢
👉A 100-year-old tortoise has been found a week after running away from home - having travelled one mile at an average speed of just 0.006mph.
Fred the tortoise was spotted making his way down a country lane by a passing motorist who picked him up after almost running him over in his car.
📖The kind Samaritan took the 100-year-old reptile home before seeing an article in the local paper about him having gone missing amid fears he had been stolen.
The man then returned Fred to his owners Terry Phelps, 86 and his wife Sue, 73, who had been worried about him since he went missing 168 hours earlier.
In that time he had made it just one mile from their home in Blackfield, near Southampton, Hants.
Mr Phelps, a scout leader, who has had Fred for more than 30 years, said:
"I can't thank Fred's saviour enough. I hadn't had a full night's sleep since he went missing."
When Fred went missing Mr and Mrs Phelps scoured the local area and recruited neighbours in their bid to find the slow-speed escapee.
They pushed numerous notes through letterboxes and got those living nearby to search their gardens, while staff at a nearby recreation centre promised to keep an eye out for Fred in their grounds.
Friends of the couple also took to social media to publicise his disappearance and appeal for sightings.
Mrs Phelps said: "Fred is a bit of a character.
"We've had him for more than 30 years, some friends of ours also had him for more than 30 years before that, and someone else had him before them.
"We think he must be at least in his early 90s and quite possibly 100 or more.
"Normally I open the back door in the morning and he's there - he'd shout out for food if he could - but he wasn't there on Tuesday the other week and simply didn't appear.
"The children next door were heartbroken - they brought him lettuce and fed him.
"He lives in a pen in the garden and has never got out before.”
