SAVANNAH, Ga. - Deputy Jared Stevens darted across a windswept expanse near the Chatham County Sheriff's Department complex, led by a handheld network of metal antennas.
Like a bloodhound catching a scent, the strange contraption blurted out a series of chirps that grew louder as the lawman neared a grungy storage shed in the middle of the field, several hundred yards from where he began.
There, next to a portable toilet behind the shed, was the object of Stevens' pursuit - a small bracelet designed to be worn by patients with Alzheimer's disease, autism or others prone to wandering.
"The transmitter sends out a radio signal, and the closer we get, the louder the tone gets," the deputy explained after the practice search last week, which took less than six minutes. "I think this will really come in handy."
The system - called Project Lifesaver - is due to go live in Chatham County later this summer. This week, sheriff's deputies are undergoing classroom and field training by instructors from the Suffolk (Va.) Department of Fire & Rescue.
The equipment, recently purchased with about $12,000 raised by county employees, works like this: Potential wanderers wear special bracelets that emit radio frequencies. Those signals, much like sonar readings, are picked up by receivers that all sheriff's deputies will be trained to use.
On the ground, the signal-reception range is about a mile. A helicopter can track the wanderer from five to seven miles away.
"It's been great," sheriff's Sgt. James Moore said of this week's training. "It's amazing to see that just putting a radio transmitter on someone's arm is so effective at locating somebody's who's just wandered off."
Project Lifesaver designers boast a 100 percent success rate and a national average find-time of about 30 minutes.
Given some recent history, that's a good thing for Chatham County.
In March, Alzheimer's sufferer Doris Langford, 85, left her Garden City home late one night. Two days later, her body was discovered in a thick batch of brush near City Hall.
In early January, Lloyd Henry, 78, died in the marsh north of U.S. 80 near Johnny Mercer Boulevard after wandering from his Whitemarsh Island home.
And two years ago, searchers found the body of Thy Nguyen, a 13-year-old autistic boy, in a pond near his Whitemarsh Island home.
The tracking system does come with a cost for clients, but it saves heaps of cash for county taxpayers.
Lt. Mason Copeland, with the Suffolk department, said that once a wanderer disappears, the average search operation - without Project Lifesaver - costs more than $340,000, according to a study done by the program's founders in Chesapeake, Va.
Project Lifesaver "saves local governments a lot of money," he said.
For patients or caregivers, a one-year enrollment, which includes equipment and monthly changes of batteries and wristbands, costs $300. Or, they can pay $20 a month for 24 months, after which the equipment is theirs. Thereafter, a $10 monthly fee is charged.
"Once a month, we go out and change batteries for clients and inspect the equipment," Copeland said. "It's a joint thing - this program only works if we're doing our part and they're doing their part."
Some charities, such as the local Pilot Club, have continued fundraising in hopes of assisting patients without the means to enroll, Moore said.
"We're very passionate about bringing anybody's loved one home if they wander off," said sheriff's Lt. Rick Hall, who's supervising the local Project Lifesaver program. "We don't want to see anymore tragedies."
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