Will County Sheriff's Office offering free scent kits to families with members at risk of wandering

A Will County family knows how fast a child can vanish.

It took 13 hours to find their 11-year-old with autism, who slipped out of their backyard. His family is now part of a program built for moments like that involving a simple tool that could save a life.

In some ways, kids are predictable. For Lisa Di Orio Cheval, it's no surprise her 11-year-old grandson Joey thinks slime is sublime.

"Since he's on the spectrum, right, like sensory-wise it kind of fills a need for him sometimes," she said.

As a parent, she knows kids can be unpredictable, too.

"It's your worst nightmare as a parent with a special needs child."

Several weeks ago, Joey was playing with his siblings in the backyard of their home in Frankfort. No one saw him use a chair to hop the fence. 

Afterwards, it seemed all of Will County went looking for him.

"Drones, helicopters. The community is amazing. There were people on foot within probably 25-30 minutes of Joey going missing," Cheval said. "I think there were at least three K9 units looking for Joey."

Just what a bloodhound like Lizzy was born to do. She and her partner, Will County Sheriff's deputy Martin Stortz, joined the search for Joey, but they weren't the ones to find him.

"Joey was 3.5 miles away, found in an elderly man's home who went to bed and left his door unlocked," Cheval said.

Safe and unharmed after 13 hours, but it might've been sooner, had a hound had some help from a scent kit, which can bottle up a scent for up to ten years.

"They would use the gauze pad to apply it to the neck, the head, chest region," Stortz said. "Once it's in this jar and sealed up, we can give it to Lizzy, and she'll just go look for that scent."

In Will County, the sheriff's office gives the kits away for free to anyone who has a family member at risk of wandering.

"It's got like this ABD pad in it that I rubbed under Joey's arms," Cheval said.

She hopes she'll never need it, but one is prepared in case of an emergency. Now, she feels more prepared for the unpredictable.

"It just makes me feel better knowing that we have that now," she said.

Clothes can help a dog pick up a scent and track someone down as long as they're not contaminated with other smells. Scent kits allow the dogs to start working right away.