American cruise passenger recently diagnosed with dementia goes missing while vacationing with family in Mexico
Edmund Bradley Solomon III, 66, of South Carolina, was traveling to the Caribbean on Royal Caribbean’s Icon of the Seas and had planned to spend the day in the port of Cozumel, Mexico. WCBD-TV.
The veteran critical care nurse went missing minutes after disembarking from a ship at a Caribbean port last week.
Solomon (aka Brad) was recently diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia. Frontotemporal dementia is a group of diseases caused by progressive nerve cell loss that affects behavior rather than memory.
“Sometimes he says strange things or acts erratically or strangely, and that’s because he’s just doing what he knows how to do,” Solomon’s daughter Savannah Miller told the outlet. “He can’t handle it the same way you and I can.”
Solomon and his wife Mimi disembarked the ship around 1:30 p.m. on April 3, stopped for a bathroom break, and then exited the terminal when their nightmare unfolded.
“He wasn’t there when his stepmother, Mimi, came out,” Miller said. “She thought he might still be in the bathroom, so she waited for him for several minutes. He didn’t come out.”
When the couple and the family they were with went into the bathroom to check on Solomon, they realized he wasn’t there.
Local authorities said Solomon was reported missing shortly after 8pm on Wednesday, and a search and rescue operation began at 9pm. Cozumel Civil Protection.
During the search, local police received a call from a taxi driver who claimed he had picked up a tourist matching Solomon’s description at around 2:30 p.m. and was asked to drop the American on the road leading to the beach. Mexico News Daily, Citing authorities.
The taxi driver is said to have stated that he used his watch to pay for the ride because Solomon claimed he had no money.
photograph captured search and rescue Efforts take place in forest areas day and night.
“The search was focused on the vicinity of Pasion Island and all beaches and shopping streets in the northern hotel zone were visited without success,” the civil protection group said in a statement.
Local police said Solomon was wearing a GPS necklace that only worked within 33 feet of his wife’s cell phone and was last seen wearing a white T-shirt, gray shorts and dark sunglasses. He was said to be wearing a blue hat.
Solomon was reportedly seen late Wednesday night along a road in Isla de la Pasion, Cozumel.
“The Directorate General of Public Security has reported that Mr. Solomon may be wandering around the city.”
The grieving daughter did not learn of her father’s disappearance until the next morning.
“I got a call around 5:30 in the morning and I just froze,” Miller said. “I didn’t even know how to process this information.”
Miller and other family members planned to accompany Mimi to Mexico to help search for her father.
“I’m really looking forward to being able to hug my dad again with Mimi by my side,” Miller told WCBD.
Miller and his cousins searched the city with their family on Saturday and were told that their father may have been seen several times that day.
She was told her father could get hydration and use the restroom at a local church.
“He is lost and scared. He is unable to express and process emotions like a healthy person,” Miller said in the post. Facebook.
GoFundMe The original goal was $5,000 to support the family. It exceeded the threshold and reached more than $16,000 on Sunday morning.
Solomon and his wife were nurses in the Charleston area, and Solomon worked as a critical care nurse at the Ralph H. Johnson VA Medical Center, where Mimi continued to work.
“He loved being with the people he loved…He always made sure we were safe and cared about us no matter who it was,” Miller said. told the outlet. “He was always a fixer and someone who was drawn to helping others.”
The couple boarded the world’s largest cruise ship, Icon of the Seas, in Miami, Florida on March 30th, and after stopping in Costa Rica, Mexico, and Roatan, Honduras, they arrived on Cozumel Island around 8 a.m. did.
