An 80-year-old White Rock man with Alzheimer’s who wandered away from a friend while shopping Friday was located safe and sound about an hour after police were notified.
But if things hadn’t turned around when they did, the senior would’ve been the subject of a ‘silver alert,’ said Const. Chantal Sears. “We were just about to start the silver-alert process as we were unable to locate him for approximately 45 minutes,” Sears told Peace Arch News by email.
“The situation would have met the criteria (of the silver-alert program) – especially given the cold weather we are experiencing, locating him quickly was a necessity.”
The incident occurred on the same day that Sears launched local efforts to educate the public about BC Silver Alert, a program that circulates information on missing individuals if they meet such criteria as suffering from dementia or other cognitive disability that could put them at risk.
The citizen-led project – there is currently no government-led alerting system of its kind – encourages people to subscribe to receive the alerts, with the idea being that timely, widespread awareness will increase the odds of locating the individuals.
It was launched in September 2014 by three people – Sam Noh, the son of Shin Noh, an Alzheimer’s sufferer who wandered away more than three years ago and has never been found; Michael Coyle, the manager of the team that searched for Noh; and Shawn Bouchard, the nephew of a woman who was found deceased after she wandered away from her home on the coldest day of winter.
“Time is of the essence when an Alzheimer patient wanders, which was evident in my dad’s case,” Noh writes on the BC Silver Alert website.
“Although my father is still yet to be found, our family wants to spare future families the pain and torment of having a loved one go missing.”
In addition to the missing person having a cognitive deficit, for a silver alert to be issued they must also be a Lower Mainland resident, have been deemed missing by local police and been missing less than 72 hours.
Alerts are issued based on missing-persons reports from authorized agencies; namely, police.
According to statistics at bcsilveralert.ca, it is estimated that three out of five people with Alzheimer’s disease will wander; the quicker they are located, the better their odds of surviving.
Thirty-five silver alerts were issued in the program’s first year; it’s estimated 5,000 to 10,000 people were notified of each incident.
For more information, visit bcsilveralert.ca