CANTON, Maine — Authorities in Oxford County found a missing 82-year-old local woman Monday night about 12 hours after she was last seen.
Florence Jordan was located at about 9 p.m. behind a barn outside her home at 449 Turner St., which is Route 108.
Chief Deputy Hart Daley of the Oxford County Sheriff’s Office said Jordan was found by Maine Game Warden Norman Lewis and his dog Clyde about 50 yards from the barn near the start of the woods on her property.
Hart said Jordan was last seen by neighbors at about 7 a.m. Monday on her way to pick up her morning newspaper at the mailbox.
When Jordan’s son arrived Monday evening to check on her, the newspaper was still in the box and Jordan was nowhere to be found. Daley said searchers from the Oxford County Sheriff’s Office, Maine State Police and the Maine Warden Service were called to help find her.
Daley praised Lewis and his tracking dog, which immediately picked up on Jordan’s scent and located her. He credited the team with likely saving the life of Jordan, who was hypothermic when search crews found her.
“We’re looking at the time frame she’d been up there,” Daley said late Monday night. “It could have been 12-15 hours.”
Daley said Jordan was conscious when crews found her and transported her to Rumford Hospital.
Hope Clyde got a reward for a job well done. Good job Game Warden Lewis and all who searched. You guys saved a life last night.
Good job Clyde and Norm.
Sounds to me like early stages of Dementia or Alzheimer’s. My mom was about 85 when she would go out for a walk and get lost. We put her into assisted living and then the disease only got worse. I hope they do something with that old lady now that the weather is getting colder; the last thing you want her to do is get lost again and freeze to death.
“Do something with that old lady”? Really? You couldn’t have come up with a less demeaning phrase?
I hope that her family, friends and members of the community come together and find a way to ensure this doesn’t happen again. If that means utilizing services available, frequent check-ins, or maybe even a facility that can provide more constant care, then so be it.
That woman has raised a family, been someone’s wife, and done other things we will never know about, but were probably monumental to individuals in her life. She deserves more then “Do something with that old lady”.
Sure, you can do all those things if it’s possible to do so. We looked into frequent check-ins, etc. for my mother, but due to logistical reasons we asked her to move in with my brother; she refused the offer. She qualified for Assisted Living under one of the State’s Medicaid assistance programs. She knew she needed help so she was very content about going into assisted living and spent many years there. Eventually, the dimentia got so bad that the assisted living facility could not take of her; she was transferred into a nursing home where she died this past January at the age of 96. In the case of Ms. Jordan we hope her son takes this very seriously; obviously the lady can’t be left alone for extended periods of time. The disease only gets worse.