Success!!!!!
On October 02, in the middle of the day, an elderly female with Alzheimer's wandered away from her caregiver in a thickly congested commercial shopping area near Cordova Mall. Fortunately, she was enrolled in Project Lifesaver, a LOCATING TECHNOLOGY in which ESAR is heavily involved. ESAR volunteers quickly moved into the area and searched until picking up the radio signal from the transmitter worn by the missing female. We were able to locate her, while she was wandering aimlessly around a large apartment complex. She had fallen, and scraped her leg and forehead but was otherwise OK. Total time from initial phone call from the caregiver to safely recovering the missing person was ONLY 22 MINUTES!
On November 12th, after darkness had settled in, an elderly male with dementia wandered away from his caregivers in another busy commercial shopping area off of Davis Hwy. Also, fortunately for him, he was enrolled in Project Lifesaver. ESAR volunteers responded to the area. His signal was picked up, and he was located about a mile away from where he was last seen. His radio transmitter led searchers directly to him inside another big store. He was not walking around outside, so would have been very hard to locate without all of the time and effort it would take to go into, and search the entire floor of every store and restaurant in the area. Total time from initial phone call from the caregiver to safely recovering the missing person was ONLY 31 MINUTES!
A quick google search for "Missing Alzheimer's" or "Missing Autism" will bring up a multitude of news stories from around the country. Some involve days of searching and hundreds of man hours, yet still end with the death or injury of a loved one. This is why ESAR is so heavily involved in Project Lifesaver.
Project Lifesaver uses a small radio transmitter worn by a person with a wandering condition (Alzheimer's, Autism, Traumatic Brain Injury, Etc...). Escambia Search And Rescue has 18 receivers distributed around Escambia and Santa Rosa Counties (from Pensacola to Cantonment to Pace to Gulf Breeze and Navarre). CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION ON PROJECT LIFESAVER AND HOW TO ENROLL