How 1,600 People Went Missing from U.S. Public Lands

Re:How 1,600 People Went Missing from U.S. Public Lands by barking on Thursday March 16, 2017 @02:15PM (#13887426)

I wonder if there is any sort of protocol for this or do people make it up as they go along.

I can imagine that a spur of the moment search like that would be chaotic at the outset.

Seems like a great space for a smartphone app that could define a grid direct searchers and use GPS to track their movements.

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Re:How 1,600 People Went Missing from U.S. Public Lands by pm90 on Thursday March 16, 2017 @03:47PM (#13888497)

Yeah seems like some kind of tracking device is a requirement for people with advanced dementia. Have had a couple of friends whose grandparents have disappeared; one of them was found dead the other one...is still being looked for. Is there any reason we can't use gps tags of some sort, other than privacy concerns?

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Re:How 1,600 People Went Missing from U.S. Public Lands by moftz on Thursday March 16, 2017 @05:56PM (#13889569)

You can buy safety pendants that contain a GPS tracker hooked up to the cell network. It has an emergency button and can be located through the service's website. Some even have a speaker and mic so you can talk to an agent through it. I'm sure they could add a feature where if the pendant is a certain distance from home then have an alert go out to a list of contacts. Buy two of them for grandma if you really want to make sure that she is never not wearing one.

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Re:How 1,600 People Went Missing from U.S. Public Lands by mattwinslow on Thursday March 16, 2017 @04:00PM (#13888629)

Apple's HealthKit/ResearchKit was extended (maybe 2 years ago?!) to include geo-fencing for basically that use case. Will try to dig up the article or github repo in a bit...

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