photos courtesy of Boyd Loving’s Facebook page
September 15,2017
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, A tracking K9 was deployed in the search for an adult male dementia patient who wandered away from a Ridgewood nursing home on Thursday afternoon, 09/14. The patient was missing for over two (2) hours before being located by a Ridgewood Police patrol officer at a strip mall on Route 17 southbound in Paramus. Prior to being found at the strip mall, the patient had also been spotted on the front porch of a single family home near the intersection of Route 17 and Linwood Avenue. Two (2) Ridgewood Police patrol officers returned the unharmed man to the nursing home just prior to 3:00 p.m.
Thank heavens for happy endings like this one. Often the individual does not have all of the outwardly visible hallmarks of dementia or Alzheimers and can get pretty far afield. Nobody says “That person is in the wrong place, I need to help them” because the affected individual looks so normal. And yet they are in great danger. This is a real problem and people should be aware and not be shy about asking “Hey, are you okay, do you have a family member or caregiver nearby?”, much as they would do if they see an unattended child. It could save a life.
It would be funny if the headline said strip club lol