86-year-old man with Alzheimer's walks out of Saskatoon care home undetected, dies days later

When Bailie Smith’s grandmother made the difficult decision to move her husband of nearly 60 years into a care home, she hoped he’d finally be safe.

Instead, just 36 hours after moving into Preston Special Care Home in Saskatoon, William Cone, fondly known as Lauri, wandered out of the facility completely unnoticed on Oct. 11. He had Alzheimer's.

“It was around 10:30 [a.m. CST] when my grandma got the call,” Smith said in an interview. “A concerned citizen had called her who actually saw my grandfather fall and they called the ambulance.”

She said care home staff had no idea he had left and it was her grandmother who informed them.

Cone, 86, was wearing slippers and had gone about eight blocks with a walker when he fell and broke his hip. He underwent surgery at Royal University Hospit