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Nanaimo RCMP officer describes finding missing woman

NANAIMO – Const. Clay Wurzinger and Police Services Dog, Boomer, found woman missing for days in the wilderness.
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Const. Clay Wurzinger and his Police Services Dog

The outcome could have been very different, according to the Nanaimo RCMP officer who located a missing woman in the Cowichan Valley earlier this month.

On Aug. 4, Nanaimo RCMP Const. Clay Wurzinger along with his Police Services dog, Boomer, rescued a 66-year-old woman who got lost on an old logging road roughly 45 kilometers west of Chemainus. During a media event at Pleasant Valley Park last week, Wurzinger told reporters that Boomer picked up the scent of the woman, who was found nearly three kilometres from her vehicle, which had ended up in a ditch along the old logging road.“It is a logging mainline that basically hasn’t been used in many years. It is grown in beyond where she went and I think that’s probably what stopped her," Wurzinger said. "She made it to the point where the road got very steep and she tried to back up and turn around and it looks like she backed into a ditch.”Wurzinger said the woman, who has health issues including diabetes, is an incredibly strong person and is very lucky to be alive.“We had thunderstorms and rainstorms between the time she went missing and the time she was found,” he said. “That’s very impressive for a 66-year-old woman.”Wurzinger told the News Bulletin that the woman was scared and rough shape when he and Boomer found her.

“She couldn’t talk,” he said.The woman was eventually transported to Nanaimo Regional Hospital, where she was united with her family.

At the end of the day, Wurzinger is just glad the woman is safe.

“It’s very rewarding,” he said. “It’s not always that outcome.”