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June 20, 2011 By Sarah Rich
To track down autistic children or senior citizens who may go missing, an Ohio police department is supplying wrist bracelets to its community that — with 911 assistance and cell phone technology — can triangulate the bracelet wearer’s location.
The Rocky River Police Department in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, acquired 15 of the tracking bracelets and demonstrated the technology to its citizens last week. Police Chief Kelly Stillman said Rocky River is the first city in Ohio to offer the bracelets, which are available free of charge (with a monthly activation fee) to those in the community who need them.
Stillman said nearly 30 percent of Rocky River’s population is senior citizens.
The bracelets — by EMFinders based in Frisco, Texas — are the size of a wristwatch. Two people are required to attach and take the device off a user’s wrist, Stillman said.
If someone wearing the bracelet goes missing, a family member or caregiver still must alert the Rocky River Police Department. The person reporting the incident or the police department then will contact EMFinders and give the bracelet serial number worn by the missing person, Stillman said. While the police department follows its usual protocol for a missing person, EMFinders will send out a signal to the bracelet. In turn, the bracelet sends a signal to the 911 operator through the Cuyahoga Emergency Communications System (CECOMS).
CECOMS then routes the signal back to the police department, which can then track down the missing person between 10 and 22 minutes.
“CECOMS has a mapping utility that we have at all our 911 stations and it actually gives us a pinpoint coordinates or where this person is,” Stillman said. The map works much like Web-based maps available on search engines. “You just zoom in and you can see exactly where they’re sitting.”
The bracelets, usually priced at $200 each, were given to the police department for free. The bracelets require a $25 monthly monitoring fee that is paid through a contract with EMFinders.
The Rocky River Police Department is looking to get more of the tracking bracelets and hopes to receive the necessary funding through the city’s Kiwanis and Rotary clubs.
Similar tracking bracelets have found growing use in communities across the U.S. In one instance, bracelets were approved last year by the county Board of Commission in Multnomah County, Ore., to track the locations of five youths affiliated with gangs. The bracelets were part of a five-month pilot program to prevent gang violence.
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Unfortunately people, especially children, go missing every day. There are a great number of methods in place to help find the missing BUT one very obvious method is totally ignored, not to say impossible until WrapMail (www.wrapmail.com) developed its technology: email. Not email-blasts BUT using the emails people send every day anyway (one-on-one emails)! Corporate and Government employees send emails ever day, these emails go to the public, business and government agencies but when they arrive they are plain black on white. Each of these emails could have a wrap surrounding the email that in addition to information and links to the respective websites also could feature pictures of missing adults and/or children. WrapMail, Inc.’s technology allows for dynamic rotation so that every single email that is sent out could feature new missing kids so that all the missing is exposed to the receiving audience. There are already RSS feeds out with data on missing kids that can be incorporated into a WrapMail. This is the milk carton of the 21st Century! These pictures have embedded hyperlinks that lead to pages with more details (such as more pictures, last seen, clothes worn, last seen with etc). There are about 50 billion emails sent every day; one-on-one emails that is, every one of them could be looking for missing children. The bottom line is that these emails are sent every day anyway – why not use them for something good? WrapMail offers their solution for free for approved organizations (organizations that focus on finding missing adults and children) as they, like everyone else, send external emails every day. WrapMail further offers its clients to incorporate this feature for free either with just an amber alert or a rotation of missing people with every outbound email. Please also see this article: http://www.canadafreepress.com/2007/cover082907.htm
May be a helpful tool, but two recent failures in the Denver area have not been encouraging. Case one an autistic girl wandered off and was later found drowned in a pond. Mfr. said that the water prevented the signal from reaching the satellite. Case two, a battery failure prevented the signal from being transmitted. Great concept, but additional work on engineering is needed, while expectations are managed.
In the case of the 10 year old girl in Arvada, Colorado the electronic conductivity (EC) of the water where the girl was located was 6,690. The highest seen in Colorado water is 600. The transmitter the girl was wearing was working fine. The radio signal could not get out of the water. In a similar test at Lake Standley, CO the transmitter was lowered to 11 feet underwater and the transmission was picked up 900 feet from shore. Every system has it's limitations. GPS and Cell systems are prone to weather conditions, infrastructure issues, time delays and outright failure. Even when the GPS/Cell system does work properly it only gets you in the general area, not a precise location. Here is the real issue: The bigger problem with GPS/Cell is that the bracelet needs to be re-charged at least twice a week. So the at risk person remains unprotected while the unit is recharging unless the caregivers purchase 2 bracelets. An equal concern is that caregivers will start to slack off in re-charging the bracelet. The fire department will tell you it's hard enough to get people to change their smoke alarm battery once a year let along re-charging a bracelet twice or more a week. Some have said that we routinely re-charge our cell phones which is true, however, we USE our cell phones daily. A safety device is not used until it's needed, thus the continual issue with re-charging. Every system has its limitations the biggest one for all is the caregivers. caregivers must be vigilant in watching their loved ones and call immediately when their loved one is missing. Time is your enemy when it comes to locating an at risk person. The best rescue is the one that never happens.
I live in the Denver area and my autistic son uses the same system as the girl in Arvada. It is managed by the police dept and an officer or volunteer comes and changes the batteries and tests the transmitter every month.
All technology, even when solely used has for the purpose for which it was intended, developed, tested, and approved, have failure modes that must be identified, fully understood relative to consequences, and mitigated if proven to be catastrophic or fatal. Quite often when analized, because the probability of occurence is remote, the consequences are thought to have been deminished, when in fact, they have not and never will. Good system safety engineering can be costly and unfortunately the savings thereof can not be understood nor appreciated until that so called remote chain of events occures resulting in a catastrophic or fatal event.
I am happy to hear the concern for your child in your area is taken so seriously by the police dept. or volunteer. It is comforting that there are caring people to assist you with your "gifted" child of god. Blessings to you!
I am happy to see that intelligent individuals are working for the greater good. Without their contributions the result would be no different than if the transmitter malfunctioned or did not work for some reason. At least those that need it have a better chance of being safe than if they did not have the technology. There will always be pros and cons, but at least the Pros increase the individuals quality and saftey in life vs. Death in some cases.