The Norwin area Project Lifesaver has received its tracking bracelets and is now taking applications to place the bracelets on patients.

Project Lifesaver works to help find people with Alzheimer's disease, dementia, autism or other diseases that put them at risk of wandering off and becoming lost. People considered at risk of wandering off receive bracelets equipped with a radio transmitter.

Norwin area volunteer fire companies will get receiver units, and when a lost bracelet wearer's relatives call 911 to report a missing person, the firefighters can activate the receiver and within minutes know the precise location of the missing person.

The Norwin project is an offshoot of a program started in the late 1990s in Virginia, but it comes here by way of Ohio. Last fall, William Sombo, assistant chief at Circleville Volunteer Fire Department, was outside of Cleveland on business when officials with the Union County sheriff's department mentioned to Sombo how effective the system was.

Impressed by the results, Sombo came back to Norwin and mentioned the project to members of the Norwin Rotary. Club members decided to help fund the purchase of two bracelets and receivers, as well as training for the people who will administer the program.

"Rotary is just really pleased to spend some of its community project money to bring this to the township," said Bill Merchant, Rotary president.

Local businesses have also contributed, buying close to 40 bracelets. These bracelets will be given to patients in the Norwin area free of charge.

Applications are available in the lobby of the North Huntingdon Township Town House.

The North Huntingdon Project Lifesaver program committee will review applications. Volunteers on the committee will include business owners, rescue and medical professionals, members of the clergy and family members of people with autism, dementia and other disorders.

Sombo said the committee will consider each application and then decide where the pre-paid bracelets should go.

"We want to make sure that the most serious type cases are the ones that get the bracelets placed first," he said.

People wishing to get bracelets for a patient can also buy them themselves. Since each bracelet has a unique radio signature, rescue personnel will still be able to track the patient.

If a person with a flight risk lives in a community nearby North Huntingdon, Irwin or North Irwin, Sombo said Norwin area receivers still could be used to track them.

"If our equipment is needed in another community, absolutely we will respond," he said.

Sombo and Merchant both said they hoped the Norwin program would inspire other communities to start their own Project Lifesaver.