This is when you start going up the chain to see where it's broken. If some random leaf node employee isn't online, that's a problem. The fact that someone else didn't notice it until now is also a problem. This person's "manager" is clearly in need of review. This may continue to that person's manager (because they didn't notice their report not checking on the VPN person) and so on.

It sounds like it's time to break out the chainsaw and start lopping off dead limbs. This is good stuff.