Mansfield News Journal

MANSFIELD - Richland County Sheriff's deputies Tuesday night located a missing 8-year-old West Fourth Street child with developmental disabilities in 22 minutes, due in part to an ankle monitoring bracelet she was wearing through Project Life Saver.

According to the sheriff's office, deputies responded at 6:17 p.m. Tuesday to the residence after learning from dispatch that the child had walked away from her residence. Deputies immediately went to the sheriff's office to obtain the tracking system and obtained the child's frequency number.

Once the equipment was set up, deputies began tracking her child from various directions. The girl was found unharmed at 7 p.m. on Miller Street in the area of Touby Street, seven-tenths of a mile from where the child was last seen on her bicycle unharmed.

According to the sheriff's office, the average time for someone to be located is 30 minutes.

According to Maj. Joe Masi of the sheriff's office, the Lions Club locally operates the program in cooperation with the sheriff's office which enables family members to receive the bracelet for elderly or other family members who might wander off.

Masi estimated fewer than 30 people in Richland County wear the bracelet.