As the weather warms, the Will County sheriff’s department is encouraging parents with children who are prone to wander to pick up an important tool that can offer peace of mind and save precious time if they were ever to go missing.
The sheriff’s department is offering Will County residents free scent preservation kits, which store a person’s uncontaminated smell that the department’s bloodhound picks up when trying to locate a missing person.
The preservation kits are good for individuals with autism or other special needs, children who have tendencies to wander off and adults with memory disorders such as dementia or Alzheimer’s disease, canine Deputy Martin Stortz said.
Stortz works with his partner Lizzy, a 2 1/2-year-old bloodhound named after Elizabeth Smart, who was abducted in 2002 when she was 14 and found nine months later.
Lizzy is “a smelling machine” and is only used by the department for missing person’s cases, Stortz said.
The American Pediatric Association estimates that almost 50% of children with autism will go missing at least once before the age of 17. Because many of these children are attracted to water, it is important to find them quickly before something tragic happens, Stortz said.
“When they have a disability, they sometimes don’t know they can’t walk out the door,” he said. “Time is of the essence for those children. Statistics show they tend to go toward bodies of water. Time is ticking.”
Homer Glen Trustee Nicole La Ha, who chairs the village’s Ability Awareness Committee, said she hopes parents of children with special needs take advantage of this Will County program. The village recently hosted an educational program to help parents make their homes more accessible should an emergency arise.
“It’s every parent’s worst nightmare,” La Ha said. “These scent kits have been known to save lives and find children.”
Likewise, seniors with dementia or Alzheimer’s disease can become easily disoriented and forget how to get back home. Sometimes they take a similar route, but there are times they make a wrong turn and end up in a neighboring town, lost and confused, Stortz said. Every hour a person is missing, they could travel about three miles based on their average walking speed, he said.
The Will County sheriff’s department said six out of 10 people with dementia or Alzheimer ‘s disease will go missing, so the scent preservation kits can offer family members caring for an elderly loved one added peace of mind.
The kit contains a specialized evidence-grade jar, a sterile gauze pad, gloves and tamper proof tape. It takes only seconds to swab an individual’s neck and head and capture their smell onto the gauze pad. The jars can preserve the scent for up to 10 years, Stortz said.
“A person’s scent is like a fingerprint,” he said.
Stortz recommends families store the jar in an easily accessible location, such as on top of the refrigerator. If the K-9 unit is called for a missing person’s case, officers will quickly grab the jar and offer it to their bloodhound, who is ready to go to work.
If a family doesn’t have a scent preservation kit, officers have to search in the missing person’s room or laundry to find an article of clothing that contains that person’s unique scent and isn’t cross-contaminated with someone else in the household, Stortz said. Frequently, families share a hamper or children share clothing, which makes cross-contamination easy.
Will County residents can pick up a free scent preservation kit at the sheriff’s department, 16911 W. Laraway Road, Joliet.
Michelle Mullins is a freelance reporter.
