On April 20th an 80 year old retired FDNY Captain with Alzheimers Disease walked away from his home in a remote wooded area in Roxbury. After a few hours, his wife and home health aid went searching for him. They came across one of the Roxbury EMT’s who told them he would notify the authorities to help with the search. This EMT notified me as EMS Chief of the situation.

I requested the Roxbury Fire and EMS units mobilized, and established a command post at the missing gentleman’s house. I contacted the Connecticut State Police to respond. We set up a Shared Command concept, between myself, the Fire Chief, and the State Police. We then developed a strategic plan to coordinate the multi-agency response. The Connecticut State Police helicopter, “Trooper One” responded to the area and began an air search. Meanwhile, Roxbury personnel searched the area’s roads with vehicles and all-terrain vehicles. No one entered the woods to allow the area to be fresh for the State Police bloodhounds once they arrived.

As the search dogs arrived, I consulted with Barbara Henry and Brien Cartegena about giving the “WARN” system it’s first real emergency message broadcast (The WARN System is the Wide Area Rapid Notification system). Roxbury has collected approximately 2000 home, cell, and business phone numbers that have been programmed into the system.

The WARN message was transmitted to the entire town. Within minutes a couple of phone calls were received from people who had seen the individual earlier in the day walking. One resident remembered seeing the man earlier, however could not remember the name of the road she saw him on. The woman drove to the road to get the name of it, and as she was turning around the man appeared from the woods. She put him in her car and brought him to the Roxbury Firehouse where the gentleman was found to be in good physical shape. He was transported to the hospital by Roxbury Ambulance for evaluation. The WARN System allowed us to mobilize the entire population as potential searchers with one message. The State Police at the scene were literally awestruck at this capability and the outcome.

Barbara Henry (1st Selectman) was very pleased in the outcome of this event. It was a great example of the potential uses of the WARN System. If anyone has any questions or more info, give me a call.

Bernie Meehan
EMD- EMS Chief - Roxbury
203 948 2561

This entry was posted on Friday, April 20th, 2007 at 1:51 pm and is filed under WARN, OES and 911. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.