Son asks all to keep eyes out for mom
Neil Barman is asking people to be extra vigilant and keep an eye out for his missing mother as they travel around Vancouver Island.
Gladys Barman, 82, of Oak Bay, was last seen on July 5 at the Petro-Canada gas station on West Saanich Road. She was driving her recently serviced, dark green 2002 Honda Accord, licence plate 940 RGA.
A woman matching Gladys Barman’s description sought directions early that afternoon in a remote part of Genoa Bay, north of Cowichan Bay, but police have not been able to confirm it was her.
“At this point, police don’t have any active leads to follow up on,” said her son.
“We are just trying to get any kind of information from the public because we don’t have a search area for her.”
Information, including maps of search areas, is being posted on a Facebook page set up by Neil Barman called Finding Gladys Barman.
An only child, self-employed Neil Barman has been devoting his time to searching for his mother, supported by friends who deliver food and even prepare plates and put them in front of him.
“I’m getting more and more worried. If she hasn’t turned up, is it because she is stuck or incapacitated somewhere and she just can’t get out?” he said.
“Because we just don’t know, we have to worry about everything.”
He asks people “just be extra vigilant, a little bit more aware than usual because she’s out there.”
Neil Barman thinks it is unlikely that his mother had a first-aid kit in the car and said she was not in the habit of carrying water with her.
Cowichan search-and-rescue volunteers have scoured the Genoa Bay area and other volunteers have turned out as well. More than 1,000 posters have been distributed.
Neil Barman understands that covering even a few square kilometres in the rugged terrain around Genoa Bay can take days. “It would be a challenging area for lay people to do.”
Searchers came in with trained dogs and also used allterrain vehicles, he said. An aerial search of the Cowichan Valley was carried out.
Weekend volunteers searched areas from Mill Bay to the south end of Shawnigan Lake up to Maple Bay. Maps were distributed among searchers in the Cowichan area, who drove through less-travelled areas.
The woman seeking directions in Genoa Bay had said she was out of gas. Neil Barman believes his mother would still have had enough fuel to allow her to travel another 65 kilometres or so.
Travelling out of Victoria is unusual for Gladys Barman, who has spent 23 years delivering the Times Colonist newspaper. She refused her son’s offer to take her to visit her sister for a few days because she did not want to leave her routes in the hands of anyone else.
No further organized searches are planned at this point, but Neil Barman is hoping Islanders will keep looking out for his mother.
“The main thing is to continue to watch.”