K-9 Beta and advanced missing person training to help Baker County

CLAY COUNTY, Fla. — More than 6 million Americans are living with Alzheimer’s disease.

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The emotional toll that the disease has on families can be overwhelming. The pressure it puts on the healthcare system is taxing. The resources and time it takes for local law enforcement to locate missing people with the disease poses its own challenges.

In its 2021 Florida report, the Alzheimer’s Association recorded that 580,000 people aged 65 and older suffer from Alzheimer’s in the state. At the current rate, that number might balloon to 720,000 by 2025.

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It was back on July 20, 2022, that Action News Jax reported that the human remains of a missing Baker County woman were found. Claire Luscombe was suffering from dementia and had disappeared from her home on Jun. 29.

But some help might be on the way in Clay County to protect others suffering of Alzheimer’s and dementia.

Thanks to The Bringing The Lost Home Project, K-9 Beta is now a valuable member of the Baker County Sheriff’s Office.

According to the BCSO, the project provides training and resources through a federal grant that was recently awarded to the county.

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The three-year grant provides scent discriminate K-9 training, missing person response protocol training, and a highly successful scent kit program to the community.

With the addition of K-9 Beta and the availability of scent preservation kits, Baker County has added valuable tools for finding missing people.

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BCSO is asking Clay County caretakers of autistic children or adults at risk of wandering who would like a scent preservation kit to contact John Blanchard, BSCO Director of Emergency Management at John.Blanchard@BakerSO.com or 904-293-3011.