Missing 77-year-old dementia sufferer found safe on Fei Ngo Shan after 30-hour search

A 77-year-old man with dementia who vanished from Sau Mau Ping on Thursday morning was located alive and conscious on a remote hillside near Shun Lee Estate on Friday afternoon, ending a tense 30-hour search that relied heavily on a police tracking device before its signal suddenly died.

The elderly resident of Sau Wo House left home as usual but was last seen at a shopping mall on Sau Ming Road. His worried wife raised the alarm around 7pm after he called her, sounding confused and unable to say where he was.

Because he wore a locator under the police’s “Project PINPOINT” for dementia patients, officers quickly pinpointed him to the slopes of Fei Ngo Shan behind Lee On Road’s Fuk Tak Temple and rushed rescue teams to the area by 2am.

Once on-site, however, the device stopped transmitting, possibly due to battery failure or being lost, plunging the operation into difficulty.

Dozens of police and firefighters combed the steep, wooded terrain through the night, later expanding the search radius while the Government Flying Service circled overhead in a helicopter from dawn.

With no sign of the man by 3pm today, police released his photo and description to the public.

Just two hours later, around 5pm, ground teams finally found him awake and responsive on the mountain.

Launched in April 2022, the “Project PINPOINT” equips dementia patients and people with intellectual disabilities with small Bluetooth trackers that relatives and police can monitor via smartphone, dramatically speeding up recovery when someone wanders off.