An exhaustive ground search for a 76-year-old woman with dementia who went missing from a care home in Lynn Valley ended tragically Sunday after a hiker discovered her body near Lynn Canyon’s Twin Falls.
RCMP, North Shore Rescue and hundreds of volunteers spent the weekend combing the forest around Lynn Canyon in temperatures that dipped well below freezing after Joan Warren wandered away from her seniors home on Friday morning.
Her body was found off a trail south of Twin Falls in Lynn Canyon Park.
Preliminary indications are that she died of hypothermia.
The B.C. Coroner’s Service is now investigating her death.
Warren was first discovered missing from her seniors care home in the 900-block of Lynn Valley Road around 11 a.m. Friday morning. Staff alerted the RCMP, who launched a search in conjunction with North Shore Rescue that afternoon.
A credible report was received early on that a woman matching Warren’s description had been spotted near to Lynn Canyon Park so searchers concentrated their efforts in that area.
Searchers also used social media, and a special emergency alert system of the North Shore Emergency Management Office to send emails and automatic phone calls to area residents over the weekend asking them to search their properties for signs of the missing woman.
“The message got out very quickly,” said Tim Jones, spokesman for North Shore Rescue.
Jones said both volunteer searchers and the RCMP put in their best effort, despite difficult circumstances.
“Alzheimer’s patients are the hardest patients to find,” he said. “They won’t communicate that they’re in trouble.”
He added if someone is off a trail and unresponsive, they can be very difficult to find.
