A young woman was found safe after a two-and-a-half-hour search in north Nanaimo on Saturday night.
According to a Nanaimo Search and Rescue press release, teams worked with RCMP on the search for a 20-year-old woman in an area near Hammond Bay Road. Search and rescue personnel were activated at about 7:15 p.m. to look in parks, on trails, along the shoreline and on residential streets between Blueback Road and Fillinger Crescent.
Police and search-and-rescue dogs were utilized, and Royal Canadian Marine Search and Rescue assisted with the shoreline search using forward-looking infrared technology.
The woman was located at about 9:25 p.m.
The press release notes that Nanaimo Search and Rescue has been tasked 32 times already in 2017 compared to a five-year average of 25 tasks per year.
“NSAR has developed a strong working relationship with the Nanaimo RCMP, which has led to increased utilization of our team to locate missing persons in urban environments,” reads the press release. “These types of searches can present complex lost person behaviours and require considerable time and resources.”
Nanaimo Search and Rescue is working on Project Lifesaver (PLI), with a goal to provide a timely response in searches for people who wander due to Alzheimer’s, autism or other conditions and disorders. For more information on the project, e-mail pli@nanaimosar.bc.ca.
For more information about trip planning prior to outdoor activities, visit www.nanaimosar.bc.ca.