4 · SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2019 TRIB TOTAL MEDIA
TECHNOLOGY IN SAFETY
Munhall police officer Jimmy Williams shows off the Project Lifesaver receiver, which can pick up
a unique radio signal from a small device resembling a wristwatch worn by at-risk individuals.
unfortunately no, it won’t be a fit,”
she said. “But at least make the
phone call so we can go through the
evaluation.”
Once accepted, Kelley would then
determine which of the 16 partici-pating
police departments across the
county would be the closest, and the
caregiver would fill out paperwork,
including the loved one’s name, ad-dress,
diagnosis and other important
information, get the equipment and
receive training in how to use it.
The care recipient wears the brace-let
at all times, Williams said. It only
needs to be taken off to change the
battery, which lasts about 60 days.
If the person does wander off, he
said, the caregiver would then im-mediately
call 911 and identity him
or herself as being part of the Project
Lifesaver program. The dispatcher
would then alert the team of officers
certified and trained in the program.
Once on site, they begin searching
for the signal.
“The receiver looks like a big an-tenna,”
Williams said. “You hold it
in your hand and program the fre-quency
into it then listen for a chirp.
When I teach the class to the officers,
I tell them to think of an old analog
radio in your car, if they remember,
where the radio station is the person
wearing the bracelet emitting that
signal and the radio is the tracking
unit. You follow that chirping noise
and it takes you right to that per-son.”
Williams got the idea to bring the
program to his department after his
son was diagnosed with autism at a
young age. His son was non-verbal
at the time, and his wife, concerned
about what that might mean for his
safety in the future, learned of the
national nonprofit program founded
in Chesapeake, Va., in 1999.
According to the website, the pro-gram
has been responsible for 3,524
rescues and that recovery times for
Project Lifesaver agencies average
30 minutes, which is 95 percent less
time than searches conducted with-out
the technology.
Williams got approval to start
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