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He did, but with the help of a simple radio tracking system, the officials found Mohan minutes later parked at Shopko.
The test of the Project Lifesaver system was such a success, sheriff’s deputies are discussing this week how to implement a program that would outfit autistic children, special needs children prone to wandering and Alzheimer’s patients with tracking bracelets, Winona County Chief Deputy Ron Ganrude said.
Project Lifesaver Inter-national is a national nonprofit that invented the search system in 1999 in Virginia. The system works like this: People wear special wristbands that emit radio signals in a radius of about a half mile. Armed with radio tracking equipment, officers pick up “pings” from the wristbands and triangulate multiple hits to a single area. Searchers then use a different radio receiver that ultimately leads them to the wristband wearer.
The system has been used to find more than 1,500 missing people, according to Project Lifesaver’s Web site. The average search lasted less than 30 minutes.
Ganrude envisions parents and caregivers could sign a contract with the county and pay a “nominal” monthly fee to the sheriff’s department, which would install fresh batteries in the wristbands once a month. Children with autism would be the first in line for the new program. Alzheimer’s patients would be added later, he said. The department could have the program implemented by January.
“I hope we never have to use it,” Ganrude said. “But the probability is there.”
tito_tat2 wrote on Dec 11, 2008 9:17 AM: