Police and SES volunteers searched into the night last night after an elderly woman was reported missing from her Nollamara home. Wendy Ann Pyke, 76, had last been seen at about 2.15pm yesterday in the area of Lemana Road and Kindra Way. Police were concerned for Ms Pyke’s welfare because she suffers from dementia.
Northshore SES received a request for assistance (RFA) at approximately 2120hrs on Wednesday evening, to provide as many FAST search teams as possible to provide back up to the local SES unit (Stirling).
Local Manager Northshore SES Nick Elliott said “Within 20 minutes of the RFA being received, Northshore had 31 volunteers heading to the search area backed up by 6 unit vehicles. This rapid and significant deployment enabled us to field 6 separate search teams straight into the high probability search areas in the minimum amount of time”.
In addition to the search teams, Deputy Local Manager Northshore SES James Hines was the designated Field Search Controller, deploying directly to search base to setup and coordinate the overall search effort with WAPOL & DFES.
All search teams stood down shortly before 0100hrs this morning, with fresh teams due to arrive at first light.
Thankfully however a 2nd round of searching was not required, as Ms Pyke was found safe and well by a member of the public at approximately 0645hrs this morning, some 6km away from where she was last seen. Her family were extremely grateful and very complementary to WA Police and SES crews for the tremendous search effort.
Nick said “There is nothing better than a successful outcome to a missing person case. SES volunteers may not have found Wendy, but they were an integral part of the operation, and everyone involved should be proud of the professional manner in which they operated last night”.
Below news clip courtesy of Channel 9.