Police on Tuesday were seeking the public’s help in finding a Norridgewock man who walked away from a Bangor psychiatric center after being hospitalized there as a patient.

Graham Lacher, 37, was last seen about 4:40 p.m. Monday before he left the Dorothea Dix Psychiatric Center at 656 State St. in Bangor, according to a news release from Shannon Moss, spokesperson for the state Department of Public Safety.

The Bangor Police Department issued a “silver alert” for Lacher, using the system to search statewide for missing elderly people or those suffering from mental illness.

The Dorothea Dix Psychiatric Center is a 51-bed facility that provides care for people suffering from severe mental illnesses. Lacher was a voluntary patient at the psychiatric center but is now considered an involuntary patient by officials, according to Moss.

“Lacher suffers from mental illness and tends to avoid people,” Moss said in the release, without further elaboration.

Authorities used a police dog to track Lacher, whose trail ended in the area of Eastern Maine Community College off Hogan Road in Bangor.

Lacher was described by officials as a white man, 5-foot-11, weighing about 265 pounds, with brown hair and blue eyes. He has long brown hair, a long beard, glasses and was last seen wearing a gray jacket, gray-green Carhartt pants and an orange knit hat, officials said.

This isn’t the first time authorities have issued an alert for Lacher. He went missing in November after leaving a home on the Waterville Road in Norridgewock. He was found within a few hours, the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife reported at the time.

Authorities asked that anyone who sees Lacher or has information about his whereabouts to call Bangor police at 207-942-8211.