MANSFIELD — Of the many missing persons calls local law enforcement receive each month, the one Gary Kiener from the Richland County Sheriff’s Office responded to last night was different.
Usually the missing person stays missing for days, sometimes weeks or months.
This time, 8-year-old Mary Kopina was found in 22 minutes — just under a mile from her house in Mansfield. It was all because she wore an ankle bracelet provided by Project Lifesaver.
“If we didn’t have it, we could still be looking for her now,” Kiener said.
Project Lifesaver is a Florida-based company the sheriff’s office has worked with since 2010. It provides a monitor which can be worn on the ankle or wrist that sends out a frequency to local law enforcement agencies.
In the event the individual goes missing, law enforcement searches for the frequency and tracks down the missing person. The company lauds an average 30-minute search time with the use of a monitor.
The program targets individuals who have been diagnosed with dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, autism or those who are prone to wander.
Since its integration in Richland County, the program averages 20 to 30 users at any given point in time, said Area Agency on Aging Chief of Longterm Care Diane Ramey.
“Every minute counts when somebody’s lost. It’s a matter of life or death, especially in high heat or the extreme cold in the winter,” Ramey said.
The Area Agency on Aging manages the program’s paperwork, she explained.
The funding for the program locally is managed by Lions Club members from the area. One monitor costs around $300. Some of that money is reimbursed through different payment plans depending on the severity of an individual’s diagnosis, Ramey said.
The sheriff’s department also works with Richland Newhope to change batteries once per month.
“It’s really a dynamic relationship and partnership,” Ramey said. “None of us reap any benefits or pay ourselves for the service, we do it because we believe in it.”
According to Maj. Joe Masi with the Richland County Sheriff’s Office, the department just recently acquired a drone to assist with tougher searches. The drone was donated by the Lions Club in Madison last year.
“As Lions, our whole motto is we serve — if we can help find a person in 30 minutes or less, it’s well worth the effort to get this project going. And yesterday we were shown that it actually does work,” Madison Lions Club member and Project Lifesaver Chairman Gene Berrier said.
Kiener is one of the four deputies certified to operate the drone.
“Fortunately, we didn’t have to use the drone last night for this girl,” he said. “We found her on a bike seven-tenths of a mile from her house. The bike didn’t belong to her … and she didn’t even have shoes on.”
Kiener is convinced the program works. He remembers a 2009 case where a man with dementia wandered off. He was a first responder.
“We spent hours and a lot of manpower looking for him. He was located in a day or two. Unfortunately, he succumbed to the experience and he passed away four days after he was found,” Kiener said. If he would have been wearing the transmitter, Kiener thinks the man would have been found sooner, and perhaps still be alive.
“I don’t know why more people don’t have it. It’s definitely a Godsend.”
