An unexpected journey

The below is a story which involves a missing person. The names have been omitted out of respect.

As patrolling PCSOs we often find people lost or missing. It's in our nature to make sure everyone gets home safely. But last week, we had a bit of an odd day.

A regular missing person had gone walking, and we'd found this out my his concerned wife. Fortunately, the Herbert Protocol was in effect and a tracker was pinging his location. He was Wimbledon, and we were in Morden, but luckily we had a van. We'd parked it up as a deterrent for shop lifting which was working a treat, but the missing person was more pressing.

Getting the missing person's wife back to the van, we called our Sarge, who was also on patrol. Which is where it got odd.

He'd also located a missing person, this time from our sister borough in Sutton.

We had to help both, so got everyone into the van.

On the way to Wimbledon, we noticed that our first missing person was getting nearer to the train station. Bad news if he managed to get on a train to anywhere. Blue lights flashed and we safely sped the rest of the way.

With Sarge driving, Maria in the back and me running around following the ping, we couldn't find him. The electronic locator on her phone was moving again, this time to the bus stop near Tesco. We were worried as both her phone and the tracker was running low on battery. Pulling over a 93 (a bus going back to Morden) I tried to see if he'd got on there. Asking the bus driver if he'd seen him, I turned to see the entire bus looking at me. So I deputised them all as witnesses.

One chimed in that they'd seen a man matching his description, 5 minutes ago.

Another said they'd seen him get on a bus.

The last one said it was the 57.

TEAMWORK!

Off we sped as the batteries we needed died, but at Colliers Wood, we caught up with a 57, finding our missing person.

Dropping everyone off home safe, we headed back to Morden, feeling happy that we'd helped two vulnerable families.