Search for Owen Rooney, BC, Canada.

Owen Rooney ingested mushrooms at an outdoor music festival and became disoriented. He was clearly the victim of an assault that was serious and beyond anything needed for the defense of property or of a person.

His initial encounter with the police took place when he had two black eyes and was bleeding from each ear which gives rise to fears of a serious concussion. He accepted a ride to a bus station but left the bus station to seek medical treatment at a nearby hospital where he was clearly mistreated.

He wandered away from the hospital without the backpack he had taken with him from the bus station and without a wallet or cell phone. Not having been located in the Grand Forks, BC area the search was extended to Vancouver although simultaneous inquiries were made in Alberta since he had recently texted a young lady from Alberta.

The search is now focused intensely on Vancouver Island and the nearby Lasqueti island, a rural area famed for its counter-culture lifestyle. There are reports of him having sold Dream Catchers door to door on Vancouver Island. His Australian accent would be distinctive although his speech might still be slurred due to his injuries. The reports from Vancouver are doubtful to some since they all follow televised reports of an initial sighting that appears to be of dubious value.

He is young and used to traveling light but I would still have focused the search in the vicinity of the Grand Forks hospital and at truck stops in the area. I know he had a brain injury and had been improperly administered morphine which would have depressed his mental acuity even more, yet he left the exterior picnic table without returning to the hospital to obtain the backpack containing his non-functioning cell phone and other belongings. It is possible he merely became disoriented at that outside picnic table. Surveillance cameras at the hospital are few and do not have any recording capability.

The Grand Forks Gazette has editorialized about the inaccuracies of the social media and has stated that the Gazette will endeavor to provide reliable information but so far I've not seen anything in the Gazette about the police officer who contacted a man with cerebral spinal fluid oozing from each hear and merely drove him to a bus station. Nor have I seen anything in the Gazette about improper administration of morphine to a severe concussion patient much less to a patient who was so disoriented he could not find his way back to his room in a very small and uncomplicated clinic. I've not seen any explanation in the Gazette about the mysterious statements that rather than being a patient with a severe concussion he was only there because he had no where else to go. I've not seen anything in the Gazette about the confusion concerning whether the player had his wallet or not; he certainly had it when initially confronted by the police. I've not seen any Gazette evaluation of the SAR mission. The Gazette has complained of the inadequacies of the social media. Perhaps the editorial staff of the Gazette should be focusing their attention on the Gazette. I wonder if the editorial staff of the Gazette think that a Canadian who had just expressed concern over his belongings would get up from that picnic table and go ambling off to the western potato field and leave those belongings behind? Its not exactly an exciting destination and its not exactly well renowned as a good place for hitchhikers.