As hundreds of firefighters, EMS crews and police searched the woods and properties all around Lake Road in Shelton straight through the night, the subject of those efforts, William Luciano, 47, ducked into the Huntington Street Cafe, where he was served by a friendly employee who didn’t have the heart to tell him to leave because he wasn’t wearing shoes or socks.
Luciano had been reported missing at about 11:30 p.m. Tuesday by employees at Apple Rehab Shelton Lakes, a nursing home and short-term rehab facility at 5 Lake Road. He was last seen heading toward the woods, with rubber slippers on his feet.
The circumstances of how Luciano left the facility are under investigation by the Department of Public Health’s Facility Licensing and Investigation Section, which licenses nursing homes, according to William Gerrish, a spokesman for the Department of Health.
Luciano’s disappearance set off an intense search — not because he posed any sort of threat, but because emergency responders just wanted to get him out of the freezing cold that gripped the area.
Shelton police are still trying to piece together why Luciano, who has a medical condition of some kind, opted to leave Apple Rehab against medical advice, where he spent the night, and how he ended up 2.4 miles away from where he started.
But the important thing is that he is apparently OK and, as of 11:30 a.m., getting evaluated at a hospital.
Story continues after the photo gallery.
Just Coffee
Maria Barden, the tapas chef at the Huntington Street Cafe at 90 Huntington St., where authorities eventually found Luciano, said she arrived to open the restaurant about 7:15 a.m. Wednesday.
Luciano walked in at about 7:45 a.m., not at all looking like a man who had spent the past seven or so hours walking outdoors in 14-degree temperatures.
He sat down and ordered a coffee, and rubbed his hands together to shake out a chill.
He was wearing a sweater and black sweat pants. He had money and some envelopes with him.
“I didn’t see anything off about him. I offered him some food but he just wanted coffee,” Barden said.
Luciano then made his way to the bathroom. When he came back out, another employee pointed out he wasn’t wearing socks or shoes.
No socks? No shoes? No service?
Not this morning.
Barden didn’t have the heart to ask him to leave.
“We have tall counters. I didn’t see what he had on his feet. He was a paying customer, I didn’t want to tell him to leave,” she said. “He ended up getting a coffee, a bagel and orange juice.”
Luciano made a second trip to the bathroom, at which point he stayed inside for awhile.
Barden decided to call Andrew Venditti, Jr., the cafe’s owner.
She described the customer to Venditti, who asked her if she had checked the news before arriving at work.
She hadn’t.
Venditti told her to call police and let them know a person matching Luciano’s description was having breakfast.
“I called the dispatcher and by the time I turned my head there were police officers walking in the door,” Barden said. “They were very quick.”
The officers were friendly to Luciano, and had a quite conversation with him, Barden said.
At about 9:40 a.m., a radio transmission went out to firefighters and EMS saying Luciano had been located, “safe and sound.”
At 9:55 a.m. Shelton police confirmed Luciano had been found at the Huntington Street Cafe, and had been taken to the hospital.
“A special thank you goes out to all the first responders who braved the elements and worked tirelessly throughout the night to locate Luciano,” Shelton police said in a written statement.
Back at the Huntington Street Cafe, Venditti, the owner, took to his Facebook page to highlight his friendly employee:
“I want to take a second to thank Maria for being so kind and patient with this man as she helped him warm up with some coffee at 7:30 a.m. She could just of easily asked him to leave, but instead, decided to help him even before realizing who he was.”
Original story (published at 5 a.m., updated at 7 a.m., follows:
Scores of first responders from several towns have been searching the area around a Shelton nursing home/rehab facility after staff there reported a resident missing late Tuesday.
The man was identified by police as William Luciano, 47.
Workers from Apple Rehab Shelton Lakes at 5 Lake Road reported him missing about 11:30 p.m., saying he had fled into a wooded area next the property, according to to a prepared statement from police issued about 5 a.m. Wednesday.
The large-scale rescue search continued straight through the night and was still active as of 7 a.m.
Temperatures were brutal — between 14 and 16 degrees — and Luciano, who has a history of seizures, is not dressed for the weather.
He was last seen wearing a blue sweatshirt, dark sweatpants, and rubber slippers, police said.
Luciano was described as 5‑foot‑1 and about 145 pounds with brown hair and brown eyes.
It wasn’t clear whether Luciano was a short-term or long-term resident of Apple Rehab.
A Code Red alert sent by Shelton police about 6:30 a.m. said Luciano had “left against medical advice” from the facility.
After Luciano was reported missing, firefighters, EMS, and police swarmed the area to search for him — on foot, on fire truck ladders, and in off-road vehicles — using thermal imaging cameras along with search and rescue dogs.
Light snow fell for most of the search late Tuesday and early Wednesday as more and more firefighters were called in to assist with trying to locate the man.
“Right now we’ve searched almost a mile perimeter of this complex in every direction,” Shelton Fire Department Assistant Chief Nick Verdicchio said at a command post emergency personnel had set up near the facility about 4:30 a.m. Wednesday.
He said eight search and rescue dogs had been brought in to participate in the search for Luciano.
As of about 5 a.m. he said seven dogs were still at the scene.
“They’re just actively trying to pick up scents,” Verdicchio said.
Firefighters had mapped the area immediately around the facility and were double- and triple-checking “grids” marked out on the map in an effort to find Luciano, he said.
Police said members of the man’s family were also assisting first responders.
Firefighters were seen looking in garages and on private property surrounding the complex.
“What we can get access to we’re going to look,” Verdicchio said. “We’re looking under cars, we’re looking in cars, we’re looking in buildings.”
At about 3 a.m. , two firefighters got off an all-terrain vehicle to tell the incident commander fresh tracks in the snow had been spotted.
Firefighters and the dog handlers used a map on a computer tablet to pinpoint the area and the dogs were sent looking, but came back empty.
More than four hours after the search began, Verdicchio hoped firefighters wouldn’t find Luciano outside — but rather, somewhere sheltered from the cold and snow.
“That’d be the best-case scenario,” he said.
Shelton Fire Department Chief Fran Jones said firefighters would remain on scene until the man is located.
“They’ll continue until we find resolution as to where this person is,” he said at the scene.
