FAIRHOPE, Ala. — Evon Rayborn has been the primary caregiver for her adult brother for 17 years.

“I promised my mother that I would take care of Glenn after she died,” Rayborn said.

Her brother, Glenn Seale, 63, is mentally challenged and has lived with her family in Fairhope since their mother died in 1991, she said.

Last month, Seale wandered away from home while Rayborn was at the grocery store for about an hour. He had not wandered away like that before, she said.

“I called the police station,” she said. “They combed the whole area — not just the police but some other city employees as well. They found him behind a gas station on Mobile Street.”

The next day Rayborn registered her brother with Project Lifesaver.

Seale now wears a radio-transmitter bracelet around his ankle with a special frequency that identifies him with local law enforcement agencies that are equipped to locate him should he become lost again.

“I think we looked for him for about two hours,” said Cpl. Shane Nolte of the Fairhope Police Department, who is the local coordinator for the program. “If he had been a participant when it happened, we could have cut that time in half.”

Project Lifesaver is an alliance between the Baldwin County Sheriff’s Office, police departments in Fairhope and Daphne, Mercy Medical healthcare organization and its John McClure Snook Regional Center, an assisted-living and senior-activities center in Daphne.

“The Snook Center provides the administrative support and the Sheriff’s Office provides the manpower and tracking teams in case a family member wanders off from their caregiver,” said Lt. John Aldrich, director of communications for the sheriff’s office, who coordinates the Project Lifesaver program. “Each participant has their own radio frequency that is maintained in a computer database. With that tracking number, officers can pull up on their computers all the information about the participant such as mental and physical condition, whether a search has been done before, and where they are likely to be found.”

Aldrich said his office has hand-held tracking receivers that are used to locate participants in the program, which cost approximately $3,000 each, with the bracelets costing approximately $300.

He said there is a $10 monthly cost associated for those participants who can afford it, but that it is not required to participate.

“We’re never going to deny anyone from participating in the program,” he said.

The Baldwin County program is part of the national Project Lifesaver program based in Chesapeake, Va., that provides equipment, training and consultation to local programs in locating and rescuing individuals that wander and are missing. The local program provides services to individuals with Alzheimer’s, dementia, autism and other disorders where wandering from home is a problem.

“Alzheimer’s and autism are growing problems where individuals have a tendency to wander, get lost and then can’t find their way home,” said Gene Saunders, chief executive officer for the national office of Project Lifesaver. “Public safety agencies have a duty to locate them but that takes manpower and time. And the clock is working against you as long as someone is out there lost who can get hurt. This is a much less costly approach for taxpayers and with a higher degree of success.”

There are now 700 participating agencies with Project Lifesaver programs in 43 states, he said, including 29 sheriff’s offices, five police departments, three fire stations and one search and rescue team in Alabama.

The national program started formally as a nonprofit organization in 2001 but had been working since 1998 through pilot programs and other efforts, he said.

The Baldwin County program started in 2004 and now has 39 participants, including five children with autism, said Mandy Green, who coordinates the program for Mercy Medical at the Snook Center.

“There is no age limit,” Green said. “We have children in the program who have autism and adults with Alzheimer’s. Mercy Medical absorbs the cost of the equipment but we do ask the participants to pay $10 a month for the batteries to be changed if they are financially able to do that.”

Green said that individuals can wear the bracelet around the wrist or ankle.

Rayborn said that her brother has adjusted well to the program, and that the bracelet around his ankle does not interfere with such daily activities as bathing.

“It’s given us peace of mind to know that if this does happen again, they can find him within minutes,” she said. “We think it’s a wonderful idea for anyone who’s not totally responsible for his actions.”

Rayborn said she hopes more people learn about the program and understand that it is not just for people affiliated with the Snook Center but also for the general public.

“Our family wants to say kudos to the (dispatch operator) and all the police and city employees who helped search and find Glenn,” she said. “They were absolutely wonderful. They got right on it. It was a good ending in our case, but it could just as easily have turned out disastrously.”