{"id":50146,"date":"2025-11-17T18:33:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-17T18:33:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/50146\/"},"modified":"2025-11-17T18:33:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-17T18:33:08","slug":"resources-for-families-with-loved-ones-prone-to-wander-charlotte-county","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/50146\/","title":{"rendered":"Resources for families with loved ones prone to wander | Charlotte County"},"content":{"rendered":"

Authorities recently found Matthew Bailey<\/a> after a nine-day search, bringing back memories of Margaret Gallway, the 80-year-old woman reunited with her family after a six-day ordeal.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Margaret Gallway wandered off in her neighborhood, much like Bailey. A flash of white on a security camera led detectives to her location. Gallway was found closed in a garage without food, water, or sunlight. Despite her usual non-verbal state due to Alzheimer’s, she spoke upon being found.<\/p>\n

This was a happy ending for Gallway, as well as for Bailey. Many families have loved ones prone to wandering, and local counties provide resources to help.<\/p>\n

Lee, Hendry, and Glades counties offer “Reunite<\/a>,” a collaborative program with United Way. The program provides a free scent kit, aiding first responders in quickly locating missing individuals.<\/p>\n

“They will take this pure scent. So, of course, people use pillowcases and clothes and other you know other things. But there’s a lot of other scents that are on there. And the search and rescue dogs have such sensitive noses that having this pure scent is really beneficial and can save time,” said Madison Mitchell, United Way Vice President of Community Impact.<\/p>\n

Glades County also offers \u201cRUOK<\/a>,\u201d a daily check-in call from the sheriff\u2019s office. If there’s no answer after three attempts, a deputy is sent to check in person.<\/p>\n

Charlotte County provides free DNA scent kits and Project Lifesaver, where individuals wear a small wristband emitting a unique tracking signal. Trained teams use this signal to find missing persons, often within minutes.<\/p>\n

The county also has the \u201cTake Me Home<\/a>\u201d program, allowing families to submit a photo and description to help deputies identify someone found wandering and unable to share their name or address.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Authorities recently found Matthew Bailey after a nine-day search, bringing back memories of Margaret Gallway, the 80-year-old woman…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":50147,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210,4250,7353,20685,31888,14831,325],"class_list":["post-50146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news","tag-charlotte","tag-collier","tag-desoto","tag-glades","tag-hendry","tag-lee"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50146"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50146\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}