(STORY IMAGE:KHQ.COM)
KOOTENAI COUNTY, Idaho -It doesn’t matter the time of year or the conditions outside, rescuers risk their lives to find missing people.
Some are found; others don’t make it.
“We're having a lot of calls for service in reference to these folks wandering away from their homes,” Will Klinkefus, a sergeant with the Kootenai County Sheriff’s Office said.
Two years ago, the sheriff’s office became the first law enforcement agency in Idaho to receive a grant from Project Lifesaver.
Project Lifesaver aims to help find elderly people with Dementia or Alzheimer’s and autistic children by tracking them through a specially designed bracelet they can wear that sends out a location signal.
“What you want to do from here is you want to slowly turn in a circle and wait for the beep to start getting louder and more intense,” Sergeant Klinefus said while showing us how it worked.
After a few minutes of searching, we found the bracelet in a tree.
“We look to a system like this as a way for us to help out and be able to find these folks and more efficiently and get them back to their loved ones,” he said.
If you’d like more information on Project Lifesaver, please contact the Kootenai County Sheriff’s Office.