Autistic Boy is Lost and Found Thanks to Project Lifesaver Device
June 20, 2008 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Health
In Newark, Ohio, 9-year-old Dustin Blackburn, who is autistic, wandered into the woods beside his house on Wednesday afternoon and was found in the next hour. Today’s Advocate Reporter reports that Dustin was wearing a wristwatch-like Project Lifesaver device, a wristwatch-like band on his ankle. At 4.35pm, his mother, Beth Blackburn, called 911 within seven minutes of his disappearance. Licking County Sheriff’s Office deputies, as well as an Ohio Highway Patrol airplane and officers, arrived quickly on the scene and found Dustin at 5.25pm.
An agency in central Wisconsin is seeking to raise funds to expand Project Lifesaver in its area; here in New Jersey, the Sheriff’s Office in Bergen County has a Project Lifesaver program, as do other New Jersey counties.
The Sheriff’s office and Dustin’s mother both attribute his being found so quickly thanks to the Project Lifesaver device. The usefulness—even the necessity—of such devices is sadly underscored by the story of 25-year-old Keith T. Kennedy who has been missing since Sunday, when he was last seen at a camp for disabled adults in Grantsburg, Wisconsin. A June 19th TwinCites.com article noted that his father, Bruce Kennedy, has been “wishing he had gotten a global positioning system device for his son.” Hundreds of volunteers have joined the search for the missing man; the recipient of a kidney transplant 14 years ago, Keith T. Kennedy has now gone several days without medication that ensures that the organ is not rejected and that it functions properly. He can only speak four words. WSAW reports that the search will continue through the weekend.
So glad they found Dustin. Let’s hope they find Keith and do it in time to save his kidney, too!
I have often **fantasized** about implanting a microship in Nik…like our cats have. Obviously, I won’t/can’t do that but it would eliminate the problem we’d have of getting him to leave the Lifesaver device on his person!
Kristina, Rich and I were really interested in Project Lifesaver when we read your post. We’ve often wondered about the feasibility of some kind of GPS bracelet or something for me; I get lost a LOT, and I can’t always comfortably communicate with the people I come across. We were both frightened when we read the recent story about a woman who was trapped in her wrecked car for days while the police waited the “standard” amount of time for a missing persons search. We’ve considered trying to set up a legal document that Rich could show in order to have the police “ping” my cellphone if I were absent for a long period of time.
So we went to the Project Lifesaver website ready to find it exactly what we were looking for. Unfortunately, the language was SO infantilizing and SO patronizing, the assumption that anyone who would be registered with this service couldn’t possibly have the agency or mental maturity to understand what was going on and thus everything slanted towards the “caregiver” perspective (he’s not my freaking “caregiver,” he’s my husband), and the general terminology so utterly demeaning (”the wanderer” being the most common designation used for the registered individual) that we quickly navigated away from the site, horrified.
There’s a lot of talk lately about services for autistic adults. if such services involve treating the adults as children to the degree that the Project Lifesaver site does, I’d rather take my chances with the elements. And I too am on medication for a chronic illness. However, I will not voluntarily hand over my hard-won autonomy and recognition as an adult for the sake of safety, even though I know and acknowledge that this is a service that could really be useful–in the best-case scenario setting our minds at ease a bit, in the worst-case scenario possibly saving my life.
@retired waif,
somehow I’m not surprised with the language and the presumptions about individuals registering with Project Lifesaver. in Charlie’s case, if he were lost (though he’s not a “runner”), he might not be able to speak his name clearly enough (and he might be too upset at having strangers asking him so many questions to respond to questions).
I know one of the autism professionals who consults with our school district has worked on having autistic kids have cell phones for emergencies and otherwise. It’s not only for them to call when they are lost (not that my son would know he was lost!), but there’s also some kind of tracking function that you can get on some phones (I think), that enables another person to track where a person is via a computer program.
Thanks again—–will keep pulling for best-case scenarios!
I was doing some title searches to see what to use for my next article (keyword – havoc) and this news item from a few days ago came up.
Autistic Girl Wanders Off; Sarpy Plan Program For Tracking
http://www.ketv.com/newsarchive/16656738/detail.html
She was found after three hours.