One year later, daughter of missing senior continues push for change

On Dec. 12, 2024, 81-year-old Earl Moberg left his River East home and never returned.

A year later, his daughter Britt Moberg is still looking for answers while dealing with the “devastating” loss.

“For the family to lose my dad, and in this way, and not find him,” she said. “It’s just hard to actually accept this as reality.”

Earl Moberg lived with dementia. He lived at home in Winnipeg with his wife. He was known to wander, as about 60 per cent of people with dementia do at some point, according to the Alzheimer’s Society of Manitoba.

His wife Brenda was his primary caregiver, and despite being recommended 24-hour supervision over a year prior, he only received one day of home care — on the day he went missing.

Ground searches with the Bear Clan Patrol and community volunteers in the days that followed didn’t offer any leads. Earl Moberg is now presumed deceased.

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“It just felt unreal,” Britt remembers. “Like, is this actually really happening? Am I actually in the field looking for my dad’s remains?”

In the past year, Britt has made several trips to Winnipeg from her home in Victoria and spent countless hours working to ensure no other family experiences what hers has. Earl’s disappearance was deemed a critical incident in June after Britt sent a detailed account of the circumstances that led to her father’s disappearance to the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority’s Critical Incident Review Committee and Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara.

The committee consulted with Britt and Brenda on their preliminary recommendations, and Britt says the WRHA will be sharing the final recommendations with her next week.

She’s also advocated for a Silver Alert program that would notify people of missing seniors through their cellphones, much like the Amber Alert system. A petition to the government of Canada, which is collecting signatures until Jan. 20, 2025, had over 2,300 signatures at time of publication.

Britt says a recent case where a Saanich, B.C. man with dementia who died after escaping his care home reaffirmed the need for a Silver Alert system.

“It’s really distressing. I’m thinking about that person and their family and what their family is going through,” she said.

She adds the support of her father’s MLA and MP, Drag the Red, Bear Clan Patrol, and community members has kept her going over the past year.

“It’s been really touching just to see how many people out there care and how many people out there are impacted by dementia,” she said.

Britt hopes the Critical Incident Review Committee’s recommendations will help improve the lives of those living with dementia.

“I think people grieve in different ways,” she said. “For me, looking at my dad’s situation and seeing how I think that it could have been preventable… I think that just means trying to advocate for the changes that could prevent that.

“I just want to feel like I’ve done everything that I can.”

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