Project Lifesaver offers safety and peace of mind
By Susan Nienow

The Project Lifesaver wristband sends out a signal that can be picked up by a tracking device. The band can be worn on either the arm or leg.

It was a snowy day last December as Monica Bell peeked out her front door every few minutes to check on her 10-year-old daughter Dani, who was waiting to go sledding with her brother. Then the one thing Bell feared the most happened. Dani, who is autistic, wasn't there.

Bell looked up and down the street for Dani and didn't see her. Her car was covered in snow, and it would have taken precious minutes to clean it off before she could drive.

"I was panicked, terrified," recalled Bell.

Then she remembered what Officer Mike Catron had told her when she signed up for the Chesterfield Police Department's Project Lifesaver program: "Don't waste time looking. Call us right away."

As soon as a police officer turned on the Project Lifesaver tracking device, it picked up a signal from the special band Dani was wearing. She was happily sledding with some other kids a street away. Her mother breathed a sigh of relief.

"[Dani] wants to do what other children are doing. She's very independent," said Bell. "[Project Lifesaver] is a safety net for her."

Officer Mike Catron brought Project Lifesaver to Chesterfield in 2001. The program uses a wristband and tracking device to help locate people with conditions such as Alzheimer's disease and autism who might have wandered off

Project Lifesaver is a rapid response system that helps quickly locate people with conditions that might cause them to wander off. The program is available to county residents who suffer from Alzheimer's disease, dementia, autism and Down syndrome. Participants are given a wristband equipped with a radio transmitter, which gives off a signal that can be picked up by a tracking device.

Used in jurisdictions in 37 states, Project Lifesaver's national recovery rate is 100 percent with no injuries, and the average location time is 22 minutes. The location time before instituting Project Lifesaver was eight hours.

Last month, Project Lifesaver led to four rescues in Virginia. An Alzheimer's patient was found in one minute, and a person with a mental disability was found in five minutes in Norfolk. A person with Down syndrome was located in 10 minutes in Chesapeake and another in Portsmouth in five minutes.

There are 33 participants enrolled in Chesterfield's Project Lifesaver program, including 14 adults with Alzheimer's and 19 children with autism or Down syndrome.

Program coordinator Catron brought Project Lifesaver to Chesterfield in 2001, and said this is the only jurisdiction he knows of with no monthly fee for the service. It's free for seniors, and others pay a one-time charge of $50. A grant funded the first two years of the program, and "civic and community organizations have really stepped in" the past two years, he explained.

Catron visits each participant once a month to change the $7.60 battery, and noted that the initial cost for the equipment for each participant is $285.

The county police department is equipped with five tracking devices that can be used in vehicles with a magnetic antenna or by hand with a YAGI directional antenna.

"We start from the last point of contact," explained Catron. The radio frequency works up to a mile on the ground or within 3-5 miles in the air.

Sixty officers have completed the two-day training class for the Chesterfield program. During a recent field exercise, an officer wearing a wristband was sent to Woodlake where he set off on foot on the bike paths after parking his car and then catching a ride deep into the community. The officers in training located him within 30 minutes using four receivers.

"It even surprised me," said Catron, who noted that typically only one receiver is used unless the situation indicates that more are needed.

To learn more about Project Lifesaver, call Catron at 674-7006 ext. 112 or visit www. projectlifesaver.org. Tax deductible contributions may be made through the Chesterfield County Police Foundation, Inc., P.O. Box 1684, Chesterfield, VA 23832.