Salt Spring senior spends night in wet, cold

Neighbour finds missing woman, 74, huddled under tarp

A 74-year-old Salt Spring Island woman who spent the night in the rain and cold was found trying to keep warm Thursday morning huddled under a tarp near some hay bales.

The discovery, made by a neighbour, came 18 hours into an extensive search started after the woman wandered away from her Beaver Point Road home.

The woman was reported missing about 5 p.m. Wednesday, an hour after she was last seen by her husband, said Salt Spring Island search-and-rescue manager Chuck Hamilton.

“We started expanding the search around her neighbourhood, trying to gather information as to where she may be,” Hamilton said.

There was concern for her health, so the search team took care to trace her every step, tracking the size 9 footprints down the driveway and along the side of the road for about a kilometre.

“We have people on our team trained in human tracking, following those subtleties of signs,” he said.

The team searched until about 2 a.m. Exhausted, they called off the search until morning.

The search resumed at first light Thursday, with dozens of volunteers called in from the Peninsula Emergency Measures Organization, which includes search teams from Sidney, North Saanich and Central Saanich, and Cowichan search-and-rescue. An RCMP helicopter circled the area and a boat from Salt Spring Island Fire was just about to deploy on Weston Lake when news the woman had been found came in.

A neighbour who went out to feed his sheep found her under a tarp in between some bales of hay, Hamilton said. She was about one kilometre from her home.

“She was very cold. She’s lucky she was found,” Hamilton said. “The neighbour knew her, saw her in distress and took her [to his] home.”

The woman was mildly hypothermic. Hamilton said the fact that she took shelter helped tremendously.

Cpl. Darren Lagan, spokesman for Salt Spring RCMP, said there was some concern for the woman because she was outside overnight. She was taken to hospital by B.C. Ambulance paramedics and was in stable condition.

Lagan said the woman’s family was very worried about her.

“They were obviously very happy with the outcome and very grateful for the search-and-rescue team and the officers who were out there,” he said. “It was a good ending.” The search took place the day a memorial was unveiled at the B.C. legislature to honour those who have died while serving as searchand-rescue volunteers.

On Thursday night, PEMO search-and-rescue volunteers were called out again to help find a hiker lost in Gowlland Tod Provincial Park.

Sidney/North Saanich RCMP received a call about 8 p.m. and the search team was on the ground about an hour later. The hiker was located just before 11 p.m. He was uninjured.