Nome Search and Rescue finds missing man

By Anna Lionas

After more than 24 hours of searching, the Nome Volunteer Fire Department Search and Rescue team found Dexter Irrigoo, 67, on Monday afternoon at the base of Gold Hill and transported him to Norton Sound Regional Hospital.
Irrigoo, who has dementia, was first reported missing Sunday morning around 8 a.m., seen leaving the NSHC East patient hostel and traveling on foot.
The NFVD was alerted around 11 a.m. and went into action right away, because of his medical condition and previous reports of him wandering off in his hometown of Gambell, Fire Chief Jim West Jr. told the Nugget.
Almost 30 employees of NSHC volunteered to join the search, joining around 20 NVFD search and rescue members and the Nome Police Department.
On Sunday, they canvassed N Street to West F Street by foot, based on camera footage that depicted a man who looked like Irrigoo walking in that area around the time of his disappearance.
Teams searched until 11 p.m. Sunday night, checking properties and utilizing a drone. They took up the search again Monday morning with a helicopter provided by Bering Air scanning the outskirts of town and the seawall. This was supplemented by ground teams, both SAR and community members.
Alaska State Troopers issued a Silver Alert Monday morning for the region, sent via email alerting people to keep an eye out for Irrigoo.
Monday afternoon NVFD received information that Irrigoo left the hostel earlier than first reported, and the video of the man they were tracking through camera’s all the way to Front Street was not him. Irrigoo went in the opposite direction, walking north toward Gold Hill.
“Once we got that information, within half an hour we had him found,” West said.
The information came from community members who reported footage from their home security cameras.
Footage from Sunday, which was blurry, showing what they thought to be Irrigoo headed to Front Street, sent SAR on a wild goose chase.
West said they worked hard to utilize all assets available to aid in the search. The helicopter from Bering Air was invaluable, being assessable and available faster than the National Guard. Ring cameras also played a large role in the search.
NVFD was also planning for K9 search units to arrive in town on the night flight from Wasilla.
The whole thing made for a good learning experience, as is every search, West said, but the communication and collaboration with the community to find Irrigoo is what made it so successful.
“That’s one thing that we took away from this, is make sure that the information we get is what we’re looking for. We have to re-verify,” West said. “If we had the right information at the right time, I think we’d have been able to find him Sunday night.”