Project Lifesaver keeps my Autistic child safe

My autistic son has been enrolled in the local Project Lifesaver program now for almost 2 years. What it is, is a wristband bracelet that has a locator device in it. In the event that he wanders or runs off, we are able to call 9-1-1 and they will send out officers with tracking equipment and locate him. Thankfully, we have never had to test this but I am aware of their rapid recovery rates and feel it is important. With several busy roads, bodies of water, and a child who will wander - his participation in this program is a necessity.

Typically during the first week of the month our Officer, from the local county Sheriff Department K-9 unit comes out to the house or school to change the battery in the wristband.
Alex likes when the officer comes to our home because he gets to give his working dogs treats - this is a huge reward for my son and my daughter, who both love animals. On Friday he came to our home to change Alex's wristband. I had noted that the tester/transmitter seemed to be intermittently working and that I wondered if our transmitter needed a new battery. He confirmed that it wasn't actually our transmitter but his bracelet that needed replacing. Since he didn't have any of the "new style" wristbands he put one of the older style wristbands on him. He noted though, that because Alex was going surfing later in the day that the wristband may not survive the beach day. Still, he felt it was better than going without the wristband and that if our transmitter tester didn't pick up Alex's signal to call them. He said he would be out as soon as he had a new bracelet for Alex, probably the next day.

Sure enough, the bracelet didn't survive the beach. The new style ones are water-tight but the older ones were less resilient. The next morning I called the sheriff's department to report that the bracelet had indeed not lasted through surfing. Shortly after, an officer (not our usual one) came to our home and put the new water-tight style bracelet onto him. Alex asked the officer "would you like to see my dogs?". The officer, thought Alex was referring to our pet dogs who of course were sniffing the officer and getting in on the action. So he responded "I did see your dogs!". We explained that Alex confuses the use of you and me and mine and yours and that he was asking to see if the officer had dogs with him. The officer said he did have dogs with him, so the kids went outside and got to bond with a very nice bloodhound working dog. He had another narcotics dog with him, that stayed locked up in the truck that the kids did not meet.

I am so thankful to the Project Lifesaver program and the commitment that the officers have to children like Alex, on the Autism spectrum, who have known elopement and wandering issues. The scary truth is that many autistic children do wander and are most often found near or in a body of water and in various stages of undress. I do not want my son to become one of these statistics and will do anything that I can to keep him safe. Through the Project Lifesaver program my son has been able to foster a bond and trust with Police Officers - whereas previously he used to cry or be afraid when he saw or heard sirens of police cars going by. The officers in this program are truly making a difference. On Friday ours even took a few minutes out of his day to help Alex work on riding his bike. He is just one of the many heroes that touches Alex's everyday life, and for whom I feel blessed.

When neighbors and the postman drove by during the wristband change (we happened to be outside because Alex was riding his bike) they of course want to know what kind of trouble is going on because the police are at our home. I am not ashamed to share with them that the officer is there to help keep my son safe and explain the program to him. Likewise, we have autistic child in area signs up in our neighborhood to alert motorists to slow down and that a child could run into the road without abandon.

I urge all parents of autistic children to explore and employ any preventative measure that is available to protect their child on the autism spectrum.


Related Links:
Show all Bon Bon Gazette Posts on Autism Safety
Autism Safety : Street Signs in your neighborhood
Project Lifesaver & Keeping your Child with Autism Safe
What a Project Lifesaver wristband looks like
Listen to my Autism Hangout Podcast here:

Gluten Free Awareness: Wristbands

I love this idea that fellow blogger and twitter member Switch2GF had made up as a reminder to keep on track with his Gluten Free diet.

Gluten Free Wristbands!

I'm seeing this as an excellent tool that I can use to put on my son's wrist to alert to others that he is Gluten Free. Take for example when he goes to school, birthday parties, field trips, the bus - places where he is not with me to act as the food cop.

I'm also loving that it is green, his favorite color. The only thing better would be if it said Gluten & Casein Free but I'll take Gluten Free. Awesome.


My son already wears a few things on his wrist for Autism Safety purposes including a Project Lifesaver wristband and an Child-ID bracelet. Oh, and sometimes he wears a Wall-E watch that he got for his birthday. Think there's room for one more thing? In the name of safety, I think YES.

The wristbands are only $2.50 a piece with discounts on orders of 10. For the next 30 days "use coupon code FREESHIP to get 20% off". To order go here: http://switch2glutenfree.com/gluten-free-wristbands/

Autism Hangout - Podcast on Autism Safety

Autism Hangout
A source for news, blogs, podcasts, social networking and more.

Check it out! Its where all the cool kids are.



MaryTara Wurmser is an autism safety advocate, the Kids and Family Category Lead at Epinions.com and publisher of the Bon Bon Gazette. She's recently done even more notable work on publicizing how to keep our kids with autism safe. Don't miss this important (and fun!) conversation.


Listen to my Autism Hangout Podcast here:

Autism Safety : Street Signs in your neighborhood

We have 2 of these signs in my neighborhood with hopefully more to come. You can get these where I live (in Ocean County NJ) by a phone call to the local police department, traffic safety. Where I live, there is no charge for the signs.

Update 8/14/08: I returned home today to find that they had put up our new sign! We live on a corner and just a block or so in from a busy street. Though there are 2-way stop signs, I requested one more sign to be put up as you pull in from the busy road. Here's our new sign!

Related Links:
Autistic Child in Area Neighborhood Sign
A website selling the signs - Buy 24" Autistic Child Area Signs

Keeping children with Autism safe

Being the parent of a child with autism, any time that anything is in the news about Autism that is any bit 'negative' (i.e: Michael Savage, etc) it seems that my email is barraged by every person who has remotely met me. "have you read this?".. "saw this and thought of you"... etc. Now, let me begin by saying that I am not complaining. I do truly appreciate that others think of me and many times I haven't seen the latest since I am behind on email, my TV has only been tuned to the same children's programming, our newspapers get thrown away unread, etc. So please, if you've ever sent me a 'Fw' about autism, don't stop. I appreciate you.

The reason I'm writing this is because the past few days I've been following (after receiving an email about it and actually catching a glimpse of it on the news) the story of Alex Irvin. It does seem like more than ever we hear about kids with Autism who are getting out and getting lost, wandering. The scenario is one of my biggest fears and nightmares. My son HAS gotten out before, and thankfully recovered before he wandered off of our property. It scares the absolute crap out of me to think about either of my children getting lost from me, but in particular for my son. We've enrolled him in a special program run by the Sherrif's department called Project Lifesaver and he wears a special tracking device on his wrist to locate him. Part of the "deal" is that a police officer comes and changes out the battery and wristband once a month. How ironic it was that today happened to be the first Monday of the Month - our battery day, after this weekend's news of Alex Irvins disappearance and 3 days later his recovery. Today, I'm hugging my little boy (and little girl) 100 times over and promising to do my best to keep them both safe. I'm so very thankful for Officer Vinny who takes the time out of his busy day each month to help us keep our Alex and kids like him safer.

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On a related note, I want to share an article that I wrote on another site - on this same topic:
Project Lifesaver & Keeping your Child with Autism Safe
And an excellent resource written by my friend, Bonnie Sayers published at her Bella site:
Safety Issues/Resources