Elgin County launches program to quickly find missing loved ones

Time is of the essence when someone with a cognitive disability wanders away from the home, and now a program that helps locate loved ones is available in Elgin County.

Elgin County OPP, along with police services in St. Thomas and Aylmer, has adopted the Project Lifesaver program, a community-based, public safety non-profit that provides locating technology. It's a system that includes a wristband for people prone to wandering and a tracking device for police to find them.

"It can be pretty dangerous [when someone wanders off]. If they are anyone with dementia or Alzheimer's, even autism, they can get lost," said Terri Snell, a support worker with Victim Services Elgin who is facilitating the program for the region.

"They will start to walk and think that they're back in the day when they were younger. They'll try to go back to their old place where they used to live and or go to the bar that they used to go to or whichever. And then with children, they will just wander because they'll just see there's toys over there or there's a forest," she said. "But they just don't know where they're going to end up, and then all of a sudden, they're lost."

Other dangers include people wandering off into forests, corn fields or bodies of water.

According to police, people who wear the wristband transmitter are typically located within 30 minutes of them going missing. Project Lifesaver is already active in Essex, Huron, Lambton, Grey-Bruce, Norfolk, Oxford, Perth and Wellington counties. The OPP said there hasn't been a death from wandering of anyone enrolled in the program since they first started using the technology in 2005.

"We've been waiting a long time for this, and we've heard really good feedback about it," said Snell. "A lot of people say this is a really good thing to have, and we can't wait for it to get going."

For more information on Project Lifesaver and to sign up a loved one, you can contact Victim Services Elgin online or call 519-631-3182.