ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, March 5, 1996 TAG: 9603050020
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
COLUMN: Reporter's Notebook
SOURCE: KATHY LOAN
Michael Wayne Hurst Jr., a 21-year-old Shawsville man, has seizures. When they come on, he often reacts by running from his Forage Road home to the surrounding woods and beyond.
County deputies, state police and regional search and rescue teams have spent countless hours searching for him, responding seven times since last July to calls from his grandparents for help.
Sometimes, Hurst returns home on his own; other times, his grandparents have found him. Usually, search teams including state police helicopters, tracking dogs and volunteers are called out.
The latest search for Hurst began late Friday afternoon, Feb. 23, when authorities and volunteers spent more than six hours looking for him. Searchers included the Shawsville and Christiansburg rescue squads, the Elliston Volunteer Fire Department, Appalachian Search and Rescue and canine tracking teams from Montgomery and Pulaski counties.
The search began at 4 p.m. and ended shortly after 10 p.m. when a resident of Jennings Road reported Hurst had stopped at his house and asked for help, then run away.
Two searchers from the Appalachian Search and Rescue found him a few minutes later in a field off Jewell Road.
"When he goes into those running spells, he's frightened to death of everything," said Nathan Hurst, Wayne's grandfather.
Before the spells started last Easter, Hurst was living a normal life - working at a job, saving money for a pickup truck. Nathan Hurst said his grandson is fine between seizures but remembers little while having or coming out of them.
The cause of the spells remains largely a mystery.
The younger Hurst has seen doctors at the University of Virginia Medical Center in Charlottesville and at Southwestern State Hospital in Marion. His grandfather says doctors are puzzled by his seizures and say they have never seen anything quite like his case.
After Hurst's most recent episode, employees at the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office and local community service organizations began to look at other ways to serve Hurst's needs.
They think they've found it in the WanderCARE monitoring system, marketed by a Boulder, Co., company called Care Electronic.
The monitor serves as a tracking device, sending a signal that alerts caregivers when the person wearing it wanders away from a designated area. A signal that is accurate to a one-mile range helps locate the person.
The device can be worn on the wrist or ankle, or attached to a belt or a special fanny pack.
Nathan Hurst said his grandson is willing to use the device. "He don't want to be hurt or worry us. He has no objections to this."
But the system is expensive. It costs $775 for the transmitter, monitor and directional antenna.
"We want him to be cured, but we don't know when that will happen. This device will greatly help us," Nathan Lucas said.
The Montgomery County Emergency Assistance Program has agreed to coordinate donations to purchase the unit for Hurst's use. Donations can be made to MCEAP's Special Purpose Fund, earmarked for the "Tracker Fund," c/o First National Bank, P.O. Box 600, Christiansburg, Va. 24073, Attention: Peggy Long.
If enough donations are received, the program may buy additional monitoring systems for use by others.
Kathy Loan covers Police and Courts for the New River Valley Bureau of The Roanoke Times.
LENGTH: Medium: 70 linesby CNB