Yeti-Tracking Device Helps Recover Alzheimer's Patient

Lee: Dr. Clayton Webster of the Department of Zoological Studies at Georg von Podebrad College may have been trying to catch the legendary Lee County Yeti, but has instead managed to help locate and rescue 63 year-old John Pattini, an Alzheimer's patient who has been missing for more than a week.

     "It never hurts to help," smiles Dr. Webster. "Of course, catching John wasn't what I had in mind at the time." (see: Podebrad Zoologists Search River Bluffs For Yeti, December, 1996, vol. 3, Issue # 12).

     Pattini had left the Bluff View Residential Care Home on July 30 and vanished into the surrounding woods. A regional manhunt shortly ensued, mobilizing law enforcement in Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, and even Kentucky. On the morning of August 8, Dr. Webster received a phone call from the Lee County Office of the Iowa Department of Natural Resources saying they were receiving signals from one of his transmitters. The DNR periodically monitors Dr. Webster's project in the spring and summer.

     "I thought it was very odd to find a hit in the middle of summer," says Dr. Webster. "The animal I'm studying occupies this habitat area near the Mississippi usually during the winter only. I headed down there with my equipment, and watched the movements for a few hours. I could tell right away it wasn't a raccoon or muskrat. It was keeping to very limited area, too, and that was in keeping with Yeti behavior. When I overlaid the tracking data on a topographic map, I found it was spending a lot of time right on top of a trap. So I headed out there, and I have to admit, I was real excited."

     What Webster encountered, though, was an old disheveled man sitting in a battered and tattered recliner in the middle of the woods, staring intently at a black steel box about the size of dishwasher with 12 inch hole cut in the side. The black steel box Webster immediately recognized as one of his traps.

     "John saw me standing there, said hello, told me to pull up a seat. I don't know where the old recliner came from because it wasn't there when I set the trap back last November. He had a six-pack of beer and a bag of pretzels. I pulled up an old log and he handed me a beer. He asked me if wanted to watch the game and if I thought Brooklyn would win the series this year. That's when I guessed he thought the trap was a TV! I asked him if he was getting good reception and he said it wasn't so bad but that the first time he switched it on it shocked him real good. He showed me his wrist and I could see a bruise where the transmitter had gone in. I asked if I could use the phone and he said he didn't have one but there was a Get'n'Gone just over the hill. So, I finished my beer and thanked him and went to phone the police."

     Pattini has been returned to the Bluff View Residential Care Home and is in excellent condition. Employees at the Get'n'Gone said they were surprised the disheveled old man who came in was the missing patient. Said one, "He remembered all our names. He seemed perfectly normal; he bought food with an ATM card every other day without any trouble at all. He only complained about his TV and that Brooklyn was having such a lousy season."