When an 80-year-old Santa Fe man with dementia went missing from the Eldorado area in January, Lorraine Tecza knew she had to do something.

“All of the sudden a lightbulb went on in my head,” Tecza said. She remembered a program called Project Lifesaver that supplied radio transmitting devices to track vulnerable people. Her father, who had Parkinson’s disease and dementia, wore one a decade ago.

“We need to get it here,” she remembered thinking, after hearing about Jose Orozco-Montijo’s disappearance.

For months now, Tecza has been lobbying the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office to join Project Lifesaver. The program is already being used elsewhere in the state but not in Santa Fe, where three seniors have gone missing in less than two years.

Santa Fe County Sheriff Adan Mendoza sai

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