Thread 2 - Michael Mosley missing after disappearing on holiday walk

[Rubbishconfession]

Following on from thread 1, linked below.

Let's hope the CCTV / sighting in town gives a glimmer of home that he made the walk from the beach to town ok.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5090880-michael-moseley-missing-after-disappearing-on-holiday-walk?page=10&reply=135846185

Same in NZ, he's very popular. His disappearance has made headlines here too.

This is exactly how I feel. As I said earlier, his work has helped me a huge amount. I have some of his books and I listen to his podcast every time I go on a walk. I just feel really sad that his voice is always in my ear when I'm out walking and something bad has happened to him when he is out walking.

I'm really hoping they find him today and by some miracle, find him alive.

hahaha well yes, obviously. i was more referring to the capacity (in physical numbers of people, time to arrange movements of people and equipment from Athens) and the budgets involved. Again - as I said, I’m only going by my personal experience working in similar- but not -identical roles in both countries (presently in Greece). Have a nice day!

'worrying news now, even locals would not have taken the path they think he has taken. deeply inadvisable route'

We keep hearing different things, initially 'it's a tiny island there's nowhere anyone could get lost' to now he took an inadvisable route to the 'mountains'. Why did it take so long for the cctv footage of him at the shop to emerge and even if they had been concentrating on the path from the beach surely a team searching on the pedi side from the start would've been a start.

Why aren't search and rescue teams from the UK assisting? Like when they rescued the boys in the tunnels in Thailand you'd think a massive combined effort would be justified.

Exactly, and that takes time and organisation, of course they don't contact the big search teams as soon as a holiday maker is late back from a walk. Its only natural to be a bit more hesitant about that

You seem to be taking neutral comments in an unnecessarily negative way

I'm Australian in the UK and my parents still in Oz. Just got off the phone to them for the weekly weekend call and they said it is all over the news there. My father had an episode of Transient Global Amnesia a few years back where he wandered off while they were on holiday and it was pretty frightful for my mother as you can imagine. They had the police out looking for him as well and thankfully he was found.

He just seems a really nice person and with such enthusiasm about him. I know how my mother was when my father went missing and just feel for his wife and family and how they must be feeling now.

Its a tiny island regardless of which country it's part of, there are logistical issues in gathering a large search team with the necessary equipment

I'm not sure why posters are taking such offence at people remarking on that

No but once they are missing longer than a few hours and it's clear they aren't late from a walk they should consult every available expert.

It isn't natural to be hesitant imo. It is natural to be anything but hesitant. They need teams with heat seaking equipment. Again why did it take 2 days for the cctv footage to emerge, had the local police just taking their time looking at it? It is a tiny place as we keep getting told, not a massive city. How much cctv is there to view?!!

If I or my loved ones went missing, I'd love it if people became obsessed with it. More critical minds trying to figure out. More people caring. Don't get the problem with it.
It's when people don't care thats a problem.

A lot of rescue teams in the UK are volunteers e.g. Mountain Rescue, RNLI, St Johns Ambulance and then you have Special Constables assisting the police and probably loads I've forgotten.

If only they had you to run things properly for them eh?

It does seem that possibly he’s taken the difficult route, not realising how bad it was, or knowing but seeing it as an adventure, or possibly confused as he didn’t feel great, and has possibly had a sudden medical event like a heart attack.

i hope they find him and I hope he’s alive when they do. He’s a wife and four children.

I know in a lead up to a heart attack you can feel unwell. My father in law was complaining of not feeling great, thought maybe he’d eaten something dodgy, he felt a bit sick and dizzy, and had a massive fatal heart attack a couple of hours later.

Understand that heat-seeing equipment is not particularly useful in heatwave conditions because the surrounding environment approaches body temperature - so lack of discrimination is a problem

The longer this goes on, the more worrying it gets.

Really feel for his family.

when you say local police it would be interesting to know your understanding of local here. Because they’re doubtfully police stationed on Symi. Which means bringing them from Rhodes. Which will have a significantly larger police infrastructure being the largest of Dodekanisos, but still only has a population of 125k people. So your question is sort of the same as asking why a police force equivalent to one which would serve the population of worthing in the uk took 2 days to - publicly reveal - lets remember, cctv results, I think it seems a bit more reasonable when you look at it like this!

The Greeks seem to be quite slow and not very organised with all of this and don't have enough of the right equipment.

In the UK, the police use heat seeking cameras in helicopters and track down people during the night (criminals) . We hear them overhead at night in our small rural village.

And wouldn't call off a search once it was dark.

The Greek police have also focused completely on one path (to the small town where he was seen on cctv) which is known to be easy, rather than exploring all the area knowing he could have made his way to the villa via the hills.

Sorry but it's coming over as a bit of a cock up.

You might not, I said this way back on a deleted Nicola bulley thread, but I have a missing family member for a number of years and reading some of the threads that pop up on it (not on mumsnet) can be heartbreaking as everyone thinks they know the situation, everyone’s an expert and can get creepy/offensive.
having the awareness is good, newspaper articles, pictures all great, having amateur armchair detectives pouring over your decisions and coming out with some offensive/wild things and gaining entertainment from it… less so.

It took 2 days for them to find and release the Pedi cctv footage. It doesn't instil confidence does it

Hoping they find him today. Especially now people gave more of an idea which route he took. Seems that initially they were looking in the wrong place.

It is possible he could be alive if he had water with him? He was still ok on Wednesday after so there's still time isn't there?

I'm hoping for him. I know I don't know him but he seems like a really good guy. So into his health too so think many of us just want him to be ok.

Not that much time. Athens isn't that far! I'm countering negative comments, not neutral ones.

I hate the Little Englander mentality that other countries just can't do what we can do.

Breaking news..symi mayor said search won’t stop til they find him. Area he was walking in riddled with snakes. So hot the dog could only work for one hour this morning.

Cmon now. Stop this. What’s wrong with you. They have no idea where he is, so they had to start somewhere, they are on a tiny Greek island that doesn’t have the resources the uk has.

And @Janiie I wonder why they didn't ask for help from another country with better equipment.

There's a bit RAF base in Cyprus not too far away and they could have offered equipment and expertise to search overnight.

If I was his family I'd be furious as the whole search seems to have been done far too slowly, not enough equipment, no contact with other countries who have the equipment, and not looking across the whole area.

They wasted time searching the sea but if he was already there, he'd be dead. And meanwhile he could have been stuck on the mountain.

I just read that many local people are also out searching and in boats looking around the coast. It is very warming to the heart of course that people react in such a human way. I live by the coast and I know that our community does the same as well when people go missing which happens an alarming amount of times really.

He could have gone into the cafe for a drink/ supplies/ facilities maybe used a phone, sat down for a bit.