Family of missing man renews call for Silver Alert system

COQUITLAM (NEWS 1130) – Today marks two years since a Coquitlam senior with dementia wandered away from his home, never to be seen again.

His family is calling on the province to prioritize an alert system to help those suffering from Alzheimer’s.

Shin Noh was last seen leaving his Coquitlam home to go for a walk September, 2013, prompting weeks of searches involving family, friends and dozens of volunteers.

His son Sam says today’s walk is to push the province to help once someone with Alzheimer’s walks out the door in a more timely fashion.

“Time is critical to quickly get the word out that somebody is missing, so I would like the government to have an official Silver Alert program so that families who have a senior with Alzheimer’s can quickly find them.”

He says he’s started a private alert system along with search and rescue leaders to speed things up, but wants to see more involvement from all levels of government.

“I think it’s great that there’s greater awareness for this issue, but prevention and education won’t help find somebody the moment they actually walk out the door. I’m focused on what sort of tools and systems are available to find somebody

After living through the situation with his father, he believes a public alert system may have helped two years ago and doesn’t want to see any other families go through what they did.

The province has resisted so far, citing privacy concerns and worries it would desensitize people to the effective Amber Aler