Police are searching a wide area as they attempt to locate missing 75-year-old man Gary, who suffers from dementia
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00:00Brett Hall, Acting Inspector of Ballarat and Local Area Commander.
00:03Beautiful, Brett, you can just put your back socks all over him.
00:06I guess, tell us why we're out here tonight.
00:08Yeah, so we're looking for a 75-year-old male by the name of Gary Butt.
00:13Gary went missing from the family home overnight on Saturday night, just gone.
00:17Gary suffers from dementia.
00:19And we know that he went to bed on Saturday night
00:23and his wife reported the missing to us.
00:26And she realised that he was missing from the family home on Sunday morning.
00:31Is this unusual for Gary?
00:33Due to his medical condition, Gary does tend to wander off from home on occasion.
00:38But he's never been gone for this long and always comes back.
00:40The fact that we're now at Wednesday and he's still missing,
00:45it can be a concern for us, obviously, and his family.
00:47How desperate is the police search been so far
00:50in terms of resources and what you've had to do?
00:52Yeah, so we typically have directions of travel for missing persons.
00:57Unfortunately for Gary, we don't at the moment.
00:58We don't really know where he got to, where he is.
01:01So our search is quite wide.
01:04With that in mind, we've enlisted additional resources from Melbourne
01:08through the Public Law Response Team.
01:11We've utilised our own local drone capability for around the areas.
01:15And we were recently able to ramp it up to 50 SES
01:18to start doing some searching of the Greenbelt areas around Ballarat.
01:22How concerning is this for day three and no sighting of Gary anywhere?
01:28Yeah, as the day goes on, it gets more and more concerning.
01:31Obviously, we need to consider if Gary's potentially out in the elements.
01:35One of our, you know, might be worries that Gary's actually sheltered up somewhere.
01:40And if that's the case, then the chances of Gary surviving is a lot higher.
01:44But we have to consider all possibilities.
01:47And how are the families dealing with the possible updates?
01:50Yeah, as you can imagine, the family are keen to see Gary home safe and well as a boy.
01:55And that gives you a bit of advice.
01:58Almost hourly contact with the family in relation to updates backwards and forwards.
02:02Like I said, it could be a matter of how happy he is.
02:05Maybe sometimes they just can't express who he is and where he lives.
02:08So is that a possibility?
02:10Yeah, that's exactly right.
02:11And what we would ask the community is that Gary isn't a risk to anybody.
02:16Gary is a 75-year-old male that's unwell and quite potentially disorientated and lost.
02:23And he just needs some help.
02:25And if anyone comes across him, I would ask that they would extend him that help.
02:28And whilst calling AAA so we can come and get him back to his family safe and well.
02:33The conditions today must be, you know, a point of concern for police as well.
02:37It's cold and people out there wandering around.
02:40Yeah, that's right.
02:41I wouldn't want to be out wandering around when it's cold and it's windy like this.
02:45So all my request is to get him back home safe and well.
02:48Can you give us a description of Gary?
02:50I know you're from Leesdale.
02:51Yeah, so Gary's picture's on our iWatch page.
02:55But he can be described as being an average size girl.
02:59His standard feature would be that he's got grey hair that's tied back in a ponytail.
03:03And he has a full set of grey beard.
03:07Typically wearing a black coat and quite often with a beanie.
03:10We also have another search that's happening today.
03:15Can you tell us a bit about a bit of the conditions
03:18that the Search and Rescue are facing out there?
03:22Oh yeah, so I haven't had anything to do with that search effort.
03:25So it wouldn't be released at Metacom on any of that.
03:28I'm hoping to say that it's continuing on and that's an ongoing investigation.
03:33Just more about the conditions out in the Enfield State Forest.
03:37And the charge that forces the police.
03:38You know, obviously if you talk generally about searching in those sort of areas,
03:43heavy forested areas, obviously it's tough on the foot.
03:45The weather would be one of the challenges for the searchers.
03:50But the effort continues to try and find somebody to get around on with the family.
03:55And there's the possibility that there's mine shafts out there too.
03:58That's one reason why the public being told not to go out.
04:02Yeah, that's right.
04:03You know, Ballarat's famous for a lot of things.
04:05One of them is mine shafts everywhere.
04:07So we need to ensure that everybody is safe.
04:09And it's quite a consideration to hunt mine shafts.
04:12But we need to get people away from them.
04:16In terms of the search for Gary,
04:18has there been no signs of him, eyewitness, CCTV, anything?
04:21We have had a couple of possible signs through CCTV.
04:24One even extended into the Melbourne CBD.
04:27But unfortunately the couple we have had haven't panned out.
04:31Whilst being a close resemblance to Gary, we weren't in fact Gary.
04:33But regardless, I would encourage anyone that thinks they might see Gary
04:37to give Tripwire a call so we can get him some help.
04:40And just in a broad context on the search of Gary,
04:44how do you train the police to find some answers for that poor human being?
04:49Again, that's an ongoing investigation.
04:51That hasn't been well enough of a running stretch.
04:54And there's a commitment to request that they continue.
04:58Hopefully they'll be able to provide the family with some closure.