Sheriff’s office adds senior search team

By DENISE DICK

VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER

YOUNGSTOWN — You awake in the middle of the night to find your elderly parent, who suffers from Alzheimer’s disease, has wandered from the house. What do you do?

“You call 1-866-387-7277,” said Kay Lavelle, who heads the senior services unit at the Mahoning County sheriff’s office.

That’s the number of U.S. Search, Rescue and Recovery Corps., a volunteer organization that searches for missing people. The organization is working with the senior services unit.

“That first call puts us on alert,” Lavelle said.

If after checking the house, a caller still can’t locate the missing person, he’s asked to call a second time.

“With the second call, we’re on the way,” she said.

Team members who are volunteers survey the area, determining if bodies of water are nearby. The sheriff’s office dive team is called in to help if needed.

Some search team members gather information about the missing person: physical description, what he was wearing, medications, health concerns. Others try to ascertain the person’s direction of travel, looking for footprints, broken tree or bush branches and other indicators that may give searchers a starting point.

If the person wandered in a vehicle, a description of the vehicle, its license plate number and possible destinations are important.

“We’re trying to make this a concerted, professional resource,” Lavelle said. She has wanderer’s information sheets for assisted-living facilities, nursing homes and individual caregivers regarding residents. The form lists information about the individual and emergency contact information to be used if he or she wanders from home.

Completing that information ahead of time saves time if an elderly person wanders, she said. Lavelle encourages facilities and caregivers to complete the forms even if the elderly individual has no wandering history.

The senior services unit started last year, but the search and rescue program started just a couple of months ago.

The team includes Boardman police officer Jack Neapolitan and his German shepherd, Maximus, who volunteers his time to help track missing people by scent.

“He’s excellent,” Lavelle said.

Ron Wisbeth, coordinator of the U.S. SARR team that covers Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, said the goal is to get volunteers to work all over the region to help find wanderers.

“We have police, fire and EMS,” Wisbeth said. “We’d like to be the fourth emergency service. That doesn’t exist in this country at this point.”

When a person who suffers from Alzheimer’s or some form of dementia wanders, most communities don’t have a specific plan or system to address it, Wisbeth said.

Training classes for U.S. SARR members are conducted once per year. To volunteer, call (724) 847-0900 or (412) 303-5650.

“Wandering is an emergency,” Lavelle said.

The team would call law enforcement in a particular jurisdiction for additional manpower if early search efforts aren’t successful.

The search service through the sheriff’s office is available to individual caregivers, nursing homes and assisted-living facilities throughout Mahoning County.

“We have more and more senior housing coming into the community,” said Lisa Solley, a spokeswoman for the District XI Area Agency on Aging. “The number of older people is only increasing in our area.”

But before the senior services unit, there wasn’t a system to deal with dementia sufferers who wander.

“We have a drug task force,” Solley said. “We have a DUI task force. We have Amber Alerts for missing children, but when a senior goes missing, there’s no concerted effort to address it.”

Lavelle encourages police departments to use the team’s services if they get a call regarding an elderly person who has wandered.

“Sheriff [Randall A.] Wellington started the senior services unit because he saw the large senior population in Mahoning County,” Lavelle said.

She was retired after 25 years in law enforcement when Wellington asked for her help.

Senior services unit volunteers, who are sworn in as civil deputies, have completed tasks for seniors they couldn’t complete themselves including changing light bulbs. They also point them in the right direction to secure legal documents or determine if home repairs are needed.

“We’re always looking for volunteers,” Lavelle said.

Call the senior services unit at (330) 480-5078 to volunteer.

Another program is senior watch where volunteers check on the well-being of seniors. Sometimes the checks are in person; other times, by telephone.

Lavelle has contacted police departments in the county encouraging them to conduct senior watches too. All but Youngstown, with which she is working to develop a program, and Boardman which has a manpower and funding shortage, agreed.

Austintown police Chief Bob Gavalier said seniors interested in participating with the program fill out a form that’s maintained by the department.

Austintown Sgt. Jordan Yacovone said 18 seniors participate. “Officers are assigned to the seniors,” he said.

The same officers visit the same seniors to establish a relationship and develop trust, he said.

Officers stop in periodically to check on the seniors, usually weekly, during their patrol shifts.

“We make sure the house is clean, check the refrigerator — if they’ll let us — to make sure there’s food,” Yacovone said.

If they find a problem, officers would tell him and he’d contact Lavelle to determine a course of action.

Other programs are in the works, Lavelle said.

“We’re in the process of putting together a program to provide foster care for pets [with Angels for Animals] when the owners need medical tests, hospitalization or rehabilitation,” she said.

Some seniors who don’t have someone to care for their pet will forgo the medical tests or treatment, Lavelle said.

“For some people, their pet is the only reason they get up in the morning,” she said.