A KIND-HEARTED teenager stopped to help a dementia-stricken pensioner who had driven around lost for ten hours before running out of petrol.

Friends Corey Kirke-Bennett, 19, and Will Docherty, 18, were driving home along the A120 when they noticed a woman walking away from her car at the side of the busy road.

They stopped and discovered she had run out of petrol while returning to her home in Ipswich after trying to reach a doctor’s appointment.

She told the boys her name was Brenda and she suffered from dementia, and was described by Corey as “around 80 years old, lost and clearly scared.”

“It was 10.30pm and we were returning from SD School of Martial Arts in Colchester to Little Oakley,” said Corey.

“Our parents always told us to look after others and respect our elders so it was a natural thing to check what was going on.

“She said she was supposed to be at a doctor’s appointment at 12pm but must have taken a wrong turn somewhere.

“She was completely lost, didn’t have a phone or a sat nav and must have driven off all her petrol.

“It was a really scary situation for her to be in and really horrible to think she’d been stranded for so long.

“That was someone’s nan that people just ignored and didn’t even think about, she must have been at the side of the road quite a while.”

The pair picked up some petrol from a nearby station, but couldn’t fill the car as they found the hatch was magnetically locked.

They called the police, who arrived and took over, telling the boys to go home.

Brenda demanded Corey’s address before they left, so she could write a letter of thanks to him for stopping to help, and as promised he received a note several days later.

Corey, of The Hornbeams, Little Oakley, who works as a sail maker for Dolphin Sails, added: “The letter brought a tear to my eye.

“She also put £20 with the note – which is a lot of money to many people so I am very grateful.

“People react by saying what a kind thing I have done, but this should be the norm, people shouldn’t even think before helping someone in that situation.

“My main message is to inspire people to think ‘okay, if he’s done that I can do something similar.’”