Community rallies to find elderly woman with dementia missing in Chilliwack

Editor’s Note: Chilliwack police have confirmed Grace Baranyk was found deceased on Wednesday.

CHILLIWACK (NEWS 1130) – People in Chilliwack are rallying around the effort to find a missing senior with dementia, who has been missing since this past weekend.

Grace Baranyk was last seen around 10:30 a.m. on Saturday, July 13 at her home on Lenora Crescent by a caregiver.

Since that time, volunteer searchers have been highlighting maps, identifying more areas where the 86-year-old may have gone, and handing out flyers with the hopes of finding her.

An impressive mobilization of search efforts for the senior can all be tracked on a public Facebook group, where you can also find detailed descriptions of Baranyk.

Members have also posted information about how people with severe dementia tend to behave in these situations, with one person saying “trademark behaviour is to move straight ahead until they come to an obstacle.”

Anyone who spots the senior is asked to call the RCMP. Members of the community, who have been posting in the Facebook group regularly, have also asked that anyone who may have potentially seen Baranyk report the sighting to Mounties.

“Ms. Baranyk answers to the name Grace and may appear to be disorientated or confused,” Corporal Mike Rail with the RCMP’s Upper Fraser Valley Regional Detachment says. “Police and caregivers are concerned for Grace’s well-being and believe she may be in need of medical attention.”

Mounties are also asking people around the area to look in their backyards, around their properties, and even “places you wouldn’t think to look,” citing concern for Baranyk’s wellbeing.

Baranyk was last seen wearing grey sweater, grey vest, and navy blue pants. She has grey/white hair that is cut short and that may be up in rollers.

If you have any information on her whereabouts, you’re asked to contact the Chilliwack RCMP at 604.792.4611. You can also get in touch with Crime Stoppers at 1.800.222.8477 (TIPS) if you’d like to remain anonymous.

Formal Silver Alert system would bolster search effort: advocate

Sam Noh has spent years advocating for a government-run Silver Alert system in B.C., which would quickly inform the public about a missing person who is particularly vulnerable.

Noh’s father, Shin, had dementia and walked away from his home in 2013, never to be seen again.

“We’d be able to use better technology to reach more people,” he says. “The media outlets, the radio stations, would be notified a lot quicker. Because in these cases, the quicker they’re found, the better chance of finding them alive.”

Noh is a co-founder of B.C. Silver Alert, to which people can subscribe for missing person notifications. A more formal Silver Alert system would be similar to Amber Alerts or disaster notifications.

Chilliwack RCMP issued a release about Baranyk’s disappearance roughly 24 hours after she was last seen. In the hours since, some people have posted on the “Missing: (Ethel) Grace Baranyk” Facebook page that they may have encountered her, but at the time, did not know she was a missing person.

“Alzheimer’s disease is a growing problem. It’s even worse now than what it was five years ago, and six out of ten Alzheimer’s patients do wander,” Noh says. “I would like to see some sort of progress, I would like the dialogue to continue, because this problem is obviously not going away. It’s just going to get worse.”

Top Stories

Top Stories

Most Watched Today