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Capitalizing on the success of urgent “Amber Alert” bulletins that help authorities find missing children, US lawmakers introduced a similar program for the elderly Tuesday that they hope to implement across America.
If passed by Congress, the legislation sponsored by six US Senate Democrats would create a “Silver Alert” aimed at helping locate missing senior citizens suffering from conditions such as dementia.
We've had silver alerts here in Texas for awhile, and if memory serves they've worked in at least a couple of occurrences.
Nothing wrong with the push to go national, far as I know.
I was in search and rescue for a few years and this is a frequent and serious problem. The real problem is that missing seniors are often alzheimers patients and are frightened and hide. It is extremely difficult to find them even with heat sensing helicopters. Thus they are often located dead. What I would propose, although some people think it undignified, etc, is the GPS tracking systems sold by Cabelas, etc for hunting dogs. It would save a great deal of time, expense and lives of lost seniors.
Georgia has Mattie's Call - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia seem to work somewhat I guess. From what I hear on the news. Putting a GPS on Know people is done often when they wonder off the 2nd time.
I was in search and rescue for a few years and this is a frequent and serious problem. The real problem is that missing seniors are often alzheimers patients and are frightened and hide. It is extremely difficult to find them even with heat sensing helicopters. Thus they are often located dead. What I would propose, although some people think it undignified, etc, is the GPS tracking systems sold by Cabelas, etc for hunting dogs. It would save a great deal of time, expense and lives of lost seniors.
I'm sure there's enough family members that have already opted for that and/or similar with older relatives whether living at their home or in assisted living facilities or some wish they could but don't have the $ to make that purchase. Not even some assisted living facilities have enough money to purchase better security systems.
Didn't I read somewhere recently that those GPS devices sometimes used on work release prisoners don't always work or are fairly easy to take off? Granted, it doesn't happen too often. I think it'd be nice but you'd have to do some convincing the seniors that it's not necessarily a "bad" thing to be wearing said device.
Maybe more assisted living facilities can make it seem better to the individual that it's in their best interest rather than the stigma that they may have already associated it with being bad? Are those units (lanyard with sort of an on-Star device attached) if you've fallen in your home and can't get back up, only good within xx amount of feet from the house? That would be another option, [altho probably not as effective as it can be easily taken off], with less of a [prison-like] stigma attached to it, .... well... within some people's minds anyways.
Some of the bigger cities you can sign up for alerts and gets texts to your cell phones with additional details in an email. With that though, you can get most all kinds of alerts, ie - police activity within [named] block, weather related, traffic related, child missing/found, elderly person missing from ..., et cetera. Only problem for me with that is I live in one area and work in the other so only a % of the time it may apply or be effective. Not all of the smaller towns, cities have such a network. It would be nice if somehow the systems could be tied in and if you're within that zone, you can tap somewhere on your phone (app) and get what's pertinent at the time. Don't foresee this happening anytime soon though as too many locales just don't have the funding.
One difference between child abductions and missing seniors
As far as I know, Amber Alerts feature a vehicle description and usually a license plate number. However, many missing seniors just wander off on foot. Silver Alerts are appropriate for those who may have driven off in their cars despite their various dementias, but I would imagine most missing seniors do not have a car "attached".
I subscribe to a law enforcement email alert system for Los Angeles County which is much broader than just the Amber Alerts, although it includes them. Sometimes a missing senior is described by height, weight, race, etc. plus clothing last seen wearing plus neighborhood last seen in. The alerts cover a wide range of matters, such as streets to avoid when there is a major structure fire.
As far as I know, Amber Alerts feature a vehicle description and usually a license plate number. However, many missing seniors just wander off on foot. Silver Alerts are appropriate for those who may have driven off in their cars despite their various dementias, but I would imagine most missing seniors do not have a car "attached".
Not from what I've observed here in Texas, where Silver Alerts were implemented ca 2007. I've seen a few dozen Silver Alerts and near as I can recall, almost all have involved vehicles and license plate numbers. I only remember a couple without such.
One was an elderly woman who apparently wandered off while awaiting a plane change at the DFW airport. The other was an elderly gentleman who left his home on foot. Both ended badly. The DFW woman's remains were found many months later and the gentleman has remained missing after some years.
What's distressing to me is that the numerous other cases have all involved elderly persons in cars, which imo is a national disgrace. I've seen this over and over in Texas and there is no excuse for it. The blame for errant seniors who have climbed into their cars and gone wildly astray, usually with tragic results, lies squarely upon those who refuse to accept responsibility for letting their elderly loved ones continue to drive. Too often the best result is that the elderly driver dies without taking innocent lives.
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One difference between child abductions and missing seniors
