On Tuesday, Feb. 14, shortly af­ter 7 p.m., Vermont State Police responded to Great Hawk Road in Rochester to the report of a miss­ing 82-year-old female. Constance Breu, who suffers from advanced Alzheimer’s, had left her residence on foot without her husband’s knowledge. After search­­­­ing the home, her husband contacted fami­ly members, who in turn called 911.

When state police arrived, mem­bers of the Rochester Fire Dept. and personnel from the Valley Res­cue Squad were already on scene, searching roadways and doing a house-to-house search. Additional resources were requested, includ­ing Vermont State Police Search and Rescue Team members, a State Police Canine Unit and a National Guard helicopter.

As these resources were re­sponding to the area, Mrs. Breu was located a short distance from her home, outdoors behind an un­occupied seasonal residence. A Rochester Fire Department repre­sentative told The Herald that two of their newer members had found her after about two hours, by fol­lowing her tracks down a driveway.

“The tracks were hard to see on the icy crust, but they spotted them and found her where she had slid down into a hidden spot behind a vacation residence. She was cold, but doing fine, when they found her, got her covered in jackets, and radioed for help. She was trans­ported to a medical facility as a precautionary measure for further evaluation.”