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Project Lifesaver was implemented in 2002

at the Lynchburg Sheriff's Office

We wanted to offer this to the citizens

of Lynchberg to give the caregivers

and family members peace of mind that

there loved ones can be found quickly

Well I was a police officer in Westpeak

Virginia for 33 years

One of my jobs was commanding officer of

special operations which was

SWOT and search and rescue.

We were having a lot of recurring cases

for alzheimer's patients that had wondered

and frankly we weren't doing a very

good job of finding them.

And I really was getting a little tired

and disheartened about

having to tell families we were

discontinuing the search or worse, we had

found them however

Project Lifesaver, number one is a tool to

help public safety personnel locate people

that have a condition that would cause

them to wonder

It's not just equipment, thats the big

thing, were not just a vendor or something

were a programme.

We have had 92 successful searches

its a great feeling, its a great peace of

mind for families and citizens of

Lynchburg. We enjoy getting to know the

families and getting to build reports with

them, so it really hits home when one

wanders and you know more about them

you have a bond with the family and

the child or the adult.

My fervent hope was to be able to find

something that would help us in, uh,

making these searches more successful. I

came across some information about

wildlife tracking and a thought occurred

to me, if we can do this with wildlife,

why can't we do it with people? So, I was

able to contact a company and get them to

work with me, uh, and develop a

transmitter that could be put on a

person's arm. And that was the start of

Project Lifesaver. Our passion, our

desire, uh, we think Project

Lifesaver, the Lynchberg Project

Lifesaver program, is uh, our premier

community service program, here in the

city of Lynchberg. Uh, we provide it now

at no cost to those that cannot afford it

through an annual fundraiser and so,

but, again the goal behind that is, is

when we bring that individual back home

safely and historically with our 92 all

within thirty minutes or less, um, the

emotion that we feel, the, the

satisfaction that we have done our job

and done it well, with the assistance of

this technology, you can't put a price on

that, because someone's life, someone's

loved one is brought home and um, it

makes a difference.

I tell people when you work at

Project Lifesaver International, it's not

a job, it's a way of life. And you adapt

yourself to it.

I'm not getting a signal.

We're going to have to call in the drone.

I use to describe it and still do as when

you're searching for somebody and you

don't anything like this to help you, you

are actually doing a swag search. And

people say 'Well what's a swag?' I said

it's a scientific wilda** guess.

Before Project Lifesaver, you didn't have

any resources but individuals.

When we first started the program, I mean

it was very bare basics, you know, we had

the receiver, we had the transmitter, uh,

and they were pretty, uh, bare, I mean it

was just a, it was a, something had never

been done before, so we were doing what

we could with what we had.

Uh, the new hat tracking equipment that

could assist with you, assist with the

search, narrow it down, make it a little

faster, give that extra peace of mind to

caregivers.

When the Project Lifesaver went to

Lynchberg sheriffs office, and we had

basic, uh, receivers that we used, in

fact our first rescue we used those

receivers and saved a ninety-two year-old

lady that had wandered from a nursing

home, um, using that equipment she was

located in eight minutes and she would

not have made it until morning, it was in

December and all she had on was a house

coat.

I kept feeling, well we, we need to be

stepping ahead, we need to improve all

the time, we need to make it easier for

the agencies, easier for the people,

give them more, more that they can work

with.

Then, you're actually able to ascend

that through air searches, which was

wonderful, but the availability of

gett'in a helicopter in a timely manner

and gett'in someone available to fly the

helicopter, your having to depend on

other people and other departments and

other resources.

Helicopters are great, I love ' em,

however, their expensive and when you

need ' em, sometimes you can't get 'em,

maintenance issues, weather issues,

crew issues, and even if you can get it,

you're thirty to forty-five minutes and

sometimes an hour away from it arriving

on scene.

Where with the drone, if you had that

you could just implement the search right

there, you don't have to depend on

gett'in an outside agency to come in and

start your search.

Here's something you can have in the

trunk of the car and it gives you what a

helicopter would give you and it gives it

to you much quicker, much cheaper.

I was on a search and rescue at one

point, and the individual, he had

autism, and he had wandered, and he had

actually gone on his bicycle, so we do

not know how far he had gotten at that

point, we weren't gett'in a signal from

his last known location, so of course we

had to spread out our perimeter, but we

live in a very hilly city, there's tons

of hills, low dips, creeks, and he had

actually, gotten along a creek line and

was just gunning it, I mean he had gotten

miles from home, quickly and he was a

young boy, so, um, with having just the

ground units, it made it difficult.

The average alzheimer's search lasts

nine hours. The average cost is fifteen

hundred dollars an hour. You factor that

into, you can search with this equipment

and in thirty minutes find this person,

this program is already paid for itself

and much cheaper than you would have by

launching this massive search.

Lynchberg Project Lifesaver, Project

Lifesaver International delivers exactly

what it says.

You know Project Lifesaver is just

wonderful and it gives that extra peace

of mind to the family members.

I have made the statement that if it was

just one person, that we were able to go

out and bring home safely, uh this

program would be worth it.

I think a lot of people don't realize how

big this problem is and if you don't

think it's a big problem, pick up a

newspaper, go on Facebook and look at all

the searches for people that have

wandered off and not been found