MOULTRIE —
The search continues in Damascus, Ga., for a 79-year-old Alzheimer’s patient who has been missing since June 11.
Doris “Tot” Shorter’s family put out a call Tuesday on an Albany television station, seeking anyone who might have seen her. Ten days of searching by rescue personnel have not located her.
Cherie Searcy of Moultrie says it could easily happen here.
Searcy is the Project Lifesaver representative for the Moultrie Pilot Club. The project is an effort by the local club to provide tracking devices for Alzheimer’s patients and children with autism or Down syndrome — medical conditions that make their victims prone to wander or run away.
The number of Alzheimer’s cases is double that of ten years ago, Searcy said, and 59 percent of them will wander at some point during the
progression of the disease.
She recounted the case of a Moultrie man with Alzheimer’s who left his apartment last Wednesday and wasn’t seen for hours. Search and rescue personnel had begun looking for him when another resident found him on her porch — coincidentally it was Searcy’s mother. The man had been injured in a fall during the time he was missing, Searcy said.
Project Lifesaver could have helped, she said.
The Moultrie Pilot Club purchased a tracking receiver in 2005 that is operated by the Emergency Management Agency. Up until two years ago, it was operated by the sheriff’s office, but the roles changed due to personnel changes at the CCSO. The club has also purchased 10 transmitters and bracelets to put onto patients so they can be tracked.
The bracelets are about the size of a wristwatch, and the transmitter fits inside. The transmitter emits a constant radio signal. If the person goes missing and emergency personnel are called in, responders can track the radio signal with the receiver.
CareTrak, the company that markets the equipment, says the average time to find a missing person who is wearing a transmitter is 30 minutes.
The Pilot Club bought 10 transmitters, Searcy said, but there are only two or three currently in use.
“We’ve never had more than five or six bracelets placed at a time,” she said. “With the number of people who need them, it’s a shame.”
The Pilot Club covers the $300 cost of the transmitter, Searcy said, but there is a mandatory $15 per month service agreement in which a technician installs new batteries each month.
For more information, call Searcy at (229) 941-5590.
Local News
Related Photos
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The CareTrak transmitter and battery fit inside a bracelet about the size of a wristwatch, but the assembly broadcasts a radio signal that can be picked up more than five miles away. Kevin C. Hall
Discussion
Pilot Club: Tracking system could save loved ones
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