AMHERST, Va. – In the last several days, at least a dozen people like Maurice Clark, have stopped by the Amherst County Sheriff's Office desperate to sign up for Project Life Saver, a tool police are using to find people with neurological issues.
"I feel like she's going to walk off and not be able to find her especially since her car doesn't run anymore," Clark told Amherst Deputy Jeffrey Floyd.
This comes after two elderly women with Alzheimer's disease wandered away from their homes.
Last Wednesday Bedford County's first responders found 83-year-old Lina Toot's body in a creek five days after she was reported missing.
And just Thursday, the Amherst Sheriff's Office found 96-year-old Dorothy Reynolds' body in the woods 100 yards from her home.
"Its a bad way to find them," Maj. Betty Wise said.
Since then, Floyd has been bust trying to put families at ease.
Floyd told Clark, "As soon as she takes off leaving notify us, so we can come and be in the area and search."
Currently, the Sheriff's Office has nine people signed up. Authorities said it costs $25 every two months to replace the battery.
"If somebody can't afford it, we will make sure that they have what they need; so we can prevent this from happening in the future," Wise said.
Families who sign up will go home with a transmitter that will go around your loved one's wrists, a year supply of batteries and a tester for the caregiver. Floyd put Project Lifesaver to the test for 10 News.
"We'll go out to the middle of the parking lot and I'll be doing a 360 (degree) circle; whichever way the ping, signals coming from I will follow that. And I will stop at intervals and do another 360. So I can know which way to go," Floyd explained when looking for Wise, who was hiding behind a shed.
Despite the influx of calls and interest in the last week, the Sheriff's Office wants to stress to families getting Project Life Saver is not the end all, be all, "But the key is how soon someone contacts us. We get people in the area get the frequency dialed in, the manpower to search for them. The quicker we can do that the better the outcome will be," Floyd said.
10 News also spoke with local representatives with the Alzheimer's Association about home safety tips to keep someone with the disease from wandering off.
"If they do have locks on the door may be have them much higher. If there's an opportunity for them to put a light or a device on the door that alerts them when that door is open, that's always a plus," Annette Clark, Family Services Central and Southwest Virginia Chapter for Alzheimer's Association, said.
For more information on Project Life Saver, call your local law enforcement agency and for safety tips and caregiver information go to https://alzfdn.org/.