The family of a Glassport woman who was the subject of a 12-hour search by hundreds of people wants to know why she was sitting in a hospital nearly the entire time.
Debbie Russell, 57, left her home to go for a walk about 4:30 p.m. Thursday and didn't return, touching off a search involving volunteers, police, rescue divers, dogs and helicopters.
An employee at UPMC McKeesport arrived at work about 7 a.m. Friday and recognized a patient as Russell, whose photo was shown on TV news reports, authorities said.
"There were hundreds of people in Glassport searching, scoping every porch, every nook and cranny in this town," said her son, Joseph Russell. "And she was there the whole time, even though we called and the police called and asked if she was there. I am really upset right now."
Russell, who suffers from dementia and brain and lung cancer, was reunited with her family. Her son said she tends to wander and often will "hide in a closet or a bathroom stall." When her disappearance stretched for hours, he feared someone took her.
"She can't walk that far, because she stumbles and falls," he said.
Susan Manko, a spokeswoman for UPMC, said hospital switchboard records show "no record of police calling us at all."
She said she couldn't discuss specifics about any medical patients. She wouldn't say whether Russell was admitted to the hospital under her own name.
"We had no belief that we had any missing person as a patient," Manko said. "Everyone was identified and accounted for. We had no Jane Does. We had no reason to believe that any of our patients were this missing person."
Alvin Henderson, assistant chief of operations for Allegheny County Emergency Medical Services, said Russell arrived at the hospital at 5:48 p.m. and was admitted. He didn't know how she got to the hospital or why she was admitted.
He said crews searched beside the Monongahela River. A search dog led authorities to a pier, and divers began searching the water as a state police helicopter flew overhead, officials said.
Henderson said police and the county 911 center called all the local hospitals several times to ask whether anyone there met Russell's description, but were told no. They alerted Port Authority officials and asked them to review surveillance tapes from inside buses, to determine whether Russell boarded any of them, he said.
Joseph Russell said he and other family members went to the hospital several times and asked permission to look for Debbie Russell, but were denied.
Debbie Russell remained at the McKeesport hospital Friday. She was "tired" but in good spirits, said Glassport police Deputy Chief Shawn Deverse.
"We're glad for any happy ending," Deverse said.
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