‘It’s impossible to search everywhere’
Police appeal to the public to help find missing woman with Alzheimer’s
Somewhere, in the rest of the world, is Helen Robertson.
If you were to draw widening rings around Helen’s lovely home in Burlington, you would mimic the search patterns of police.
Most people with Alzheimer’s who wander are found in that first, small, circle. Others are found in the next, larger, circle. And so on.
But Helen, with her sturdy legs and love of walking, may be among the five per cent of missing who stroll out into the biggest circle of all. “The rest of the world.” The phrase has stuck with Helen’s children, Jeff and Jill, after hearing it at Halton Regional Police headquarters. Officers showed them maps of the many kilometres they have searched since Helen, 79, left home on July 5.
“It’s overwhelming,” Jill says, welling up. “That’s when you notice how much brush, water is everywhere. It’s impossible to search everywhere.”
A massive search has taken place for nine sweltering days and there is not a trace of Helen. Not a sighting. Not a discarded piece of clothing. Not an image captured by a security camera.
“We need some resolution to this,” says Jeff. “We’ve had so many days with nothing happening.”
At their parents’ Millcroft Park Drive home, the siblings manage to smile a little as they recall the days when Helen’s mind was sharp and her life full.
Their father, Don, is in the house too, but this is too difficult for him. He is 82 and lost without his Helen.
They met at a dance in university and have been best friends ever since.
While Don studied medicine at the University of Toronto and became a family physician and a coroner, Helen went to U of T and then the University of Guelph and taught math and home economics.
They married nearly 60 years ago and raised their family in Deep River before moving to Milton.
Helen’s interests were vast. She took up sewing, knitting, quilting, weaving, cooking, baking. She skied downhill and cross-country. She played bridge, did yoga.
Helen has grandchildren; Jill’s two children, Jack, 19 and Nicole, 17, who live in Waterloo Region, and Jeff’s daughter Emily, 19, in Georgetown.
The teens have all searched for their grandmother.
Three or four years ago Helen was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. Jeff and Jill say sometimes she knows them, sometimes she doesn’t. And she wanders. It has happened seven or eight times. In February she left a fitness club wearing someone else’s boots and was found seven hours and 25 kilometres away in Mississauga.
“When she’s found, she’s not sure what all the fuss is about,” says Jill. “She’s just out for a walk.”
On July 5, Helen and Don had finished an early lunch when he heard the side door close. He hoped she would be back in a moment.
At 6:30 p.m. Don phoned his son. Jeff didn’t get that message until 9. He called 911, but by then …
The challenges faced by the Robertson family would be familiar to anyone with aging loved ones with dementia. The desire to balance freedom and independence with safety and supervision. The awkwardness of candid conversations and tough decisions. The trials of finding help that satisfies everyone. The pros and cons of GPS bracelets, the need for a Silver Alert system to find wandering adults.
Det. Joe Barr is the investigator on Helen’s case. He is working closely with Const. Andy Olesen, who co-ordinates Halton’s search unit.
They started by saturating the Robertsons’ neighbourhood. Cruisers drove the streets. Officers knocked on doors and checked backyards. The Hamilton Police Service mounted unit was brought in. Halton canine and marine units were deployed. A helicopter from Durham Regional Police was used. The Ontario Search and Rescue Association, a group of highly trained and specially insured civilians, helped. The OPP emergency response team also assisted with the ground search. Nothing. As days pass, the search is scaled back. Now it is a matter of checking each tip that comes in.
Tuesday night a man drove through the intersection of Bronte and Upper Middle roads. He smelled something foul and called police. At 10:30 Wednesday morning, when it is already 30 C, Olesen teams up with Const. Matt Lawless and his police dog Storm to check a former golf course at that busy intersection.
They search a small area close enough to the road to be a possible source for an odour. Though the humans are unable to smell anything, Storm is let off his leash and runs with his nose to the ground. He barrels through brush, over branches and anywhere Lawless points.
“He’s just looking for any kind of odour,” Lawless says. Storm finds nothing. Officers involved in the search for Helen continue to look on their own time, planning runs and bike rides in unsearched areas.
“I haven’t slept well these last few nights,” admits Barr.
The most important thing that can be done now, he says, is for everybody to join the search. That means homeowners checking backyards, sheds. Dog walkers checking parks, paths. Hikers checking trails …
Jeff and Jill now talk about their mother in the past tense.
“I can’t imagine a scenario where she’d be found OK,” says Jeff.
One thing that made the Alzheimer’s easier, for those around Helen, was her constant state of happiness.
“She was very happy,” says Jill. “Right until she was last seen.”
Helen is five-foot-two, 110 pounds with white, collar-length hair and glasses. She could be wearing a red, long-sleeved shirt and mismatched shoes. If you have information, call Halton police at 905-825-4747 ext. 2305.
Susan Clairmont’s commentary appears regularly in The Spectator. sclairmont@thespec.com 905-526-3539 | @susanclairmont