A veteran Coquitlam Search and Rescue volunteer who has participated in numerous searches for missing elderly people with dementia — including two who died while lost — hopes a petition will prompt the federal government to adopt a national Silver Alert strategy.
Michael Coyle was asked to provide advice and to support a Silver Alert petition started by a former Ontario MPP. It has now garnered 500 names, enough to prompt a federal response.
Still, he would like to see more action, with the federal government taking a leadership role.
“If the federal government is going to have an alerting system, why not a Silver Alert idea? We’d only need a 5-km radius to start," Michael Coyle, Coquitlam Search and Rescue volunteer
Coyle, who has been called out on several cases of missing people with dementia — including Shin Noh, a Coquitlam pastor who was never found, and a Burnaby woman who was found dead on a park bench — said he’s frustrated by the lack of action.
The province is now testing an emergency alert system for wireless devices, with Alert Ready — a joint provincial and federal initiative to deliver critical and potentially life-saving alerts to Canadians.
Coyle would like it to be expanded to add Silver Alerts, so people within the vicinity of the missing person will check their yards or neighbourhood.
With a Silver Alert in place, more people close to the missing person would check around their yards or neighbourhoods and keep an eye out, he said.
“If the federal government is going to have an alerting system, why not a Silver Alert idea? We’d only need a 5-km radius to start."
Coyle said most people with dementia could be found close to home if such an alert system were in place.
What’s different about people with dementia compared to other people who go missing is that those with cognitive impairment don’t know how to get home or won’t seek help. “Other people who go missing go missing for various reasons. It’s in their power to come back,” Coyle said, noting the exception of victims of foul play.
He believes a Silver Alert system, which would give details and instructions over radio, television and wireless devices, would save lives.
In the case of Noh, a credible sighting was provided to emergency rescuers but too late to do anything about it, he said.
Coyle would like to see an initiative to get information out to people more quickly.
Currently, RCMP send out alerts but they have to be carried by radio or social media to be immediately effective, but that doesn’t always happen, and not everyone listens to radio or is on social media.
“We need help getting the information out faster,” said Coyle.
• To find out more about the petition, visit silveralertcanada.ca. To find out more about Alert Ready, visit alertready.ca.
