Royal Caribbean cruise passenger with dementia, 66, disappears while on vacation in Mexico
An American cruise passenger, who was recently diagnosed with dementia, vanished while he was on vacation with his family in Mexico
Edmond Bradley Solomon III, a 66-year-old South Carolina resident, had taken the trip down to the Caribbean on Royal Caribbean’s Icon of the Seas and had planned to spend the day at port in Cozumel, Mexico, according to WCBD-TV.
The former VA critical care nurse had disappeared minutes after getting off the ship at the Caribbean port last week.
Solomon, who goes by Brad, was recently diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia, a group of diseases caused by progressive nerve cell loss that affects a person’s behavior and not memory.
“He sometimes says odd things and behaves erratically — or oddly — because he’s just doing what he knows how to do,” Solomon’s daughter Savanah Miller told the outlet. “He can’t process the same way you or I can.”
Solomon and his wife, Mimi, disembarked from the ship around 1:30 p.m. April 3 and stopped for a restroom break before leaving the terminal when the nightmare unfolded.
“When my stepmom, Mimi, came out, he wasn’t there,” Miller said. “She thought he might still be in the bathroom, so she waited for him for a few minutes. He didn’t come out.”
A family member with the couple had gone into the bathroom to check on Solomon but discovered he wasn’t there.
Solomon was reported missing just after 8 p.m. Wednesday and a search and rescue operation was launched at 9 p.m., according to local agency Cozumel Civil Protection.
During the search, local police received a call from a taxi driver who claimed to have picked up a tourist matching Solomon’s description around 2:30 p.m. and was asked to drop the American off at a road with beach access, according to Mexico News Daily, citing authorities.
The taxi driver allegedly said Solomon had paid for the ride using his watch because he claimed he didn’t have any money.
Photos captured search and rescue efforts unfolding in wooded areas during the day and night.
“The search focused on the vicinity of Isla de la Pasión and all the beaches and businesses in the northern hotel zone were visited, without success,” a statement from the Civil Protection read.
Local police said Solomon had a necklace with a GPS, which only works within 33 feet of his wife’s phone, and was last seen wearing a white T-shirt, gray shorts, dark sunglasses and a blue hat.
Solomon was reportedly spotted later Wednesday evening along the road of Isla de la Pasión in Cozumel.
“The Public Security Directorate reported that Mr. Solomon was possibly wandering around the urban area.”
The distressed daughter didn’t learn about her father’s disappearance until the next morning.
“I got the call about 5:30 in the morning and I just froze,” Miller said. “I didn’t even know how to process this information.”
Miller and other family members had planned to travel down to Mexico to be with Mimi and help with the search for her father.
“I’m really looking forward to having Mimi by my side and being able to give my dad a hug again,” Miller told WCBD.
Miller and her cousins spent Saturday searching the city with her family and were told of several possible sightings of her father throughout the day.
She was told her father could be staying hydrated and using the bathroom at local churches.
“He is lost and scared. He cannot show or process emotions like a healthy person would,” Miller said in a post on Facebook.
A GoFundMe was set up with an original goal of $5,000 to help support the family. It has surpassed the mark and was at over $16,000 Sunday morning.
Solomon and his wife were nurses in the Charleston area, where he worked as a critical care nurse at Ralph H. Johnson VA Medical Center, where Mimi has continued working.
“He liked to be with the people that he loved … he was always making sure that we were safe and we were cared for no matter who it was,” Miller told the outlet. “He’s always been a fixer and someone who’s just drawn to helping other people.”
The couple had boarded the Icon of the Seas, the world’s largest cruise ship, on March 30 in Miami, Florida, and made stops in Costa Maya, Mexico, and Roatan, Honduras, before docking in Cozumel around 8 a.m.
