KNIGHTDALE - Every morning before eight-year-old Kylie Byrd goes to school, her mom makes her breakfast, sees that she's properly dressed and checks to see that her battery is working.

Kylie wears a "Project Lifesaver" bracelet which emits a signal. It's a battery-operated safety net to the Wake County Sheriff's Department communication center should she become missing.

Kylie has autism, a developmental disability that typically appears during the first three years of life and affects a person's ability to communicate and interact with others.

"She a sweet, loving child," says her mother Terri Byrd. "She loves her animals and she loves people and it's taken us a long time to get her to that point."

Kylie also likes to run.

The latest time, the night before Halloween, she slipped away from her father Todd Byrd when he fell on some wet leaves trying to open the gate to the fence around the family's home. She ended up in a cornfield, half a mile away from the couple's house in a subdivision near East Wake High School.

Wake County Sheriff's deputies found her in less than 24 minutes thanks to the bracelet Kylie wears. Deputies used a mobile receiver to beam in on her location near Keiths Road.

"If you've got a tool to speed up the process, you save time, you save manpower," said Wake County Sheriff Donnie Harrison. "Time is of the essence when anybody walks away. It's especially dangerous in real cold weather or real hot weather. The quicker we can find these people, the better can we can find them alive."

Project Lifesaver is a joint project of the Wake County Sheriff's Department and the Pilot Club of Raleigh. As part of the program, people with brain disorders wear the tracking bracelets, each emitting a distinct frequency number.

Harrison has a special interest in finding missing persons. He offered his tracking services with blood hounds for free to help find missing people after he retired from the N.C. Highway Patrol.

He had heard about Project Lifesaver and as sheriff was trying to find a sponsoring organization when Betty Moore of Raleigh happened into his office one afternoon.

"Pilot Club is an international organization with a focus on helping people with brain disorders," she said. "I went to an international convention and heard about this and decided it would be a great thing to have in Wake County."

Soon after there was a meeting of minds between Moore and Harrison.

"Oh, I was excited," said Harrison. "It was something I'd been wanting to do for quite some time."

Moore offered to pay half the costs if the sheriff's department would pony up the rest. Harrison leapt at the chance and included it in the budget that Wake County commissioners approved.

The Pilot Club has managed the program which started in October, 2006. Moore said to become a Project Lifesaver participant you must live in Wake County, have a documented brain disorder and have walked away from your caregiver in the past. The caregiver must check your battery every day and keep it in a log Moore checks. She comes to participants' homes and changes the battery every four to five weeks.

The device is especially helpful in finding Alzheimer's patients.

Harrison tells of the first Operation Lifesaver participant -- an elderly man with Alzheimer's who had wandered away from home three or four times. With the bracelet, it took deputies five minutes to find him after he had fallen in the woods and couldn't get up.

The Byrds were contacted by the Wake County Sheriff's Department the first time after Kylie ran away from home and asked if they would like to participate in the program.

Terri said Kylie's run four times since June 1 and she is relieved that she was found quickly each time since she became enrolled in the program.

"We hear so many times about children not being found," she said. "It's a shame it can't be there for every child who goes missing."

Project Lifesaver currently has funds for 35 participants, Moore said. She said the program will grow as it gets more funding. Harrison said if people don't want to wait, they can pay the $300 it costs for the bracelet and the sheriff's department will provide the service.

If you want to register for Project Lifesaver or donate funds, call Moore at 787-7467 or the Wake County Sheriff's Department at 856-6495.