Urgency mounts as search for missing Whistler senior marks day 3

Efforts to find a missing man near Whistler, B.C., are growing in urgency, as the third day of searching draws to a close.

Robert McKean was last seen on Thanksgiving Day, while out walking his dog Lexi at the top of Alpine Way, according to RCMP.

Search crews have now covered all the trails in the area McKean was believed to have been walking.

1:36 Huge search in Whistler for missing 80-year-old man and his dog

Search-and-rescue volunteers said Wednesday they had have shifted to helicoptering in to increasingly remote areas farther into the forest.

“The search will continue into the immediate future,” Brad Sills with Whistler Search and Rescue said.

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Neighbour Jennifer Walsh told Global News the community was growing increasingly concerned, with colder and wetter conditions in the forecast.

“Pretty much right away, everyone wanted to start looking,” she said.

“He goes for daily walks; that’s when we see him, always walking the dog up and down the street and in the neighbourhood, see him every day walking Lexi, and so just very worrisome that he would be gone for that long and not coming back.”

Walsh said the community was particularly worried because McKean lives with dementia.

2:19 What is a Silver Alert?

Laura Tamblyn Watts, president and CEO of CanAge, a national seniors advocacy organization, said there are a growing number of reports of people with dementia getting lost.

She said it’s led to an uptick in searches — along with an uptick in calls for a Silver Alert system to help locate missing people with cognitive impairment.

“That’s going to be something that our search and rescue folks are really going to have to start thinking about how to make sure that we’re keeping our outdoors dementia friendly,” she said.

“And making sure that when we are performing rescues, we’re doing so in a way that helps people come in and feel safe, as opposed to people get scared and hide from them.”

McKean is described as five-feet-six-inches tall and 130 pounds with a slim build. He was last seen wearing a green jacket, a baseball hat, blue jeans and a blue Vancouver Canucks hoodie.

Lexi is a white and ginger Cavalier Spaniel.

— with files from Cassidy Mosconi