September 3, 2010

Wandering man located after search

      Firefighters spent more than two hours searching through woods and fields for a rural Bargersville man who wandered from home.  The rescue team included a helicopter and more than 40 firefighters, with help from two police departments and the latest tracking technology.  In the end, the man was found after a woman gave him a ride to a gas station and called 911, Bargersville Fire Department spokesman Paul Bird said.  Fred Thompson, 83, wandered away from his home on State Road 135 south of Bargersville on Tues­day afternoon. His wife reported him missing at 3:15 p.m.  Thompson, who suffers from Alzheimer’s disease, has walked off at least 10 times before but usually is found quickly, Bird said. He’s a participant in the county’s Project Lifesaver program, a system that public safety workers use to track people with conditions that can lead them to wander from home.  He wears a small transmitter in a wristband that firefighters can zero in on with radio equipment.  Firefighters used that technology to find him sitting by a creek after he wandered away from home in frigid temperatures last winter.  This time, he got a head start and was picked up more than two miles south of his home, Bird said.

         During the search, Bargersville, White River Township, Franklin, Indianapolis and Wayne Township firefighters followed faint radio signals through fields along the highway.  At least six deputies from the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office and the Bargersville Police Department also looked for Thompson, Bird said.  Witnesses reported seeing him wander through cornfields, so firefighters summoned a helicopter since he couldn’t be spotted from the street.  A woman picked him up near State Road 44 and County Road 400W near Trafalgar, Bird said. He had gotten far enough away to be out of the range of the radio receivers.  “We would eventually have found him, but a man of his age is at risk wandering around like that,” Bird said. “The bottom line is that he’s alive and home with his family.”  (Reprinted with permission from the Daily Journal)
   
     

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