Magnolia residents Jim Dyer and his partner, Stuart Vincent, received Outstanding Citizen awards at a City Hall ceremony Aug. 2 for the rescue of an elderly woman with Alzheimer's disease after she wandered away May 15 from her home in Magnolia and fell down an embankment.
It was the seventh annual award ceremony, which included 38 for Outstanding Citizen and 23 awards for Heroism. Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske noted that police officers receive awards all the time. "But six years ago, we also took an awful hard look at what people do for the police department."
The ceremony is meant to celebrate citizen accomplishments that the city knows about, Mayor Greg Nickels said. "The job of public safety is something we take very seriously," he said, adding that police can't do the job all alone.
In the case of Dyer and Vincent, the rescue was the result of Florida-based phone-alert system called A Child Is Missing (ACIM). It's like a reverse 911 call that goes out to residents in an area in 20 states where both children and adults have gone missing.
It was the first time the system was used in Washington, said police spokeswoman Renée Witt at the time. The system is triggered following a 911 call about a missing person. Police fax the ACIM organization the information about the person, their physical or mental condition, their home address and the last location the person was seen.
Then ACIM records a message and plugs it into a database, which is then used to send the phone message to residents and businesses in the area where the person turned up missing.
Dyer and Vincent got one of those calls, and instead of going for their afternoon jog on 28th Avenue West as they usually do, the two men and their dog, Dyson, ran on 29th Avenue West, the street where the woman lives. "But we really didn't expect to find her," Vincent said.
But about half a mile into their run, Dyson stopped, which is unusual, and the men spotted the woman, who obviously fahad llen down the embankment, they said at the time. "We probably wouldn't have been curious ... if we hadn't gotten the [phone] message," Dyer added.
Vincent and Dyer flagged down a patrol car and found out the woman had been missing for several hours. She was reunited with her worried husband, but the two men downplayed their part in the rescue. "Blame it on the dog," Vincent smiled. "He's the one who stopped."
Dyer and Vincent each received a certificate of appreciation and a Seattle Police Department coffee cup.
Dyson, the dog, wasn't present at the ceremony, but he was listed as an outstanding citizen on the award program.
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