How it all started

It's sometimes hard to know when exact moments happen that change your life forever. The reality is that in anyone's lifetime there can be countless moments to choose from, with countless definitions of what the term ‘changed life' actually means. But if we take the time to think about it, often we can pinpoint single moments that leap out of our memory banks and allow us to say, with absolute confidence, "that was the day when our lives changed forever".

Christmas Baby

On the 19th of December, 1996, our sixth and last child was born. With great excitement we realised that we were, almost, having a Christmas baby!

So when my labour began on the 18th, the anticipated excitement was as much as you would expect to see on Christmas morning itself. This baby was to change our lives forever, because our wee bundle of joy, our little Nathan, was born with Down Syndrome.

Fast forward several years and we had learned a lot... the ups, the downs, what to expect, what to look forward to, and the possibilities that were on offer for a child with Down Syndrome.

We had decided to move from Kerikeri in the Far North, with its glorious semi-tropical weather, to Taranaki, the birthplace of Nathan's father, Colin. We had lost my Dad to emphysema and Colin's Mum a few months later. It seemed right to bring the family together, so when Nathan was two, and with my Mum in tow, off we went to New Plymouth.

Escape Artist

After a few months of living in rented accommodation, I began to realise that Nathan had a knack for finding holes in fences and hedges. We discovered that neighbours' cats (and sometimes our own) were cleverly showing Nathan how to crawl through every imaginable gap! He quickly learned to crawl and totter after them, escaping as soon as my back was turned.

I have to be honest and say that in the beginning this was amusing, but as time wore on and Nathan grew bigger, his excursions became more ambitious... and more dangerous.

All hands to the pump

When Nathan was three he was found standing in the middle of the main highway near our home with cars whizzing past at a hundred kilometres an hour. Now he had grown beyond his ‘convenient holes in the hedge' routine and learned how to open gates.

He was also able to walk for longer distances. Distance became our new enemy, and we began finding Nathan several kilometres away from our house. At times we found him visiting complete strangers in their homes!

He thought nothing of hopping into strangers' cars or taking himself off to the local park several blocks from home.

Then Nathan learned how to run. His ability to run away when we were busy with other things (cooking tea, reading a book, doing the washing) knew no bounds. In fact, his disappearances almost seemed calculated!

I would often have to return home in a hurry from a half-finished supermarket shop after receiving a call from Colin saying Nathan had gone walkabout (what a blessing mobile phones are).

It was ‘all hands to the pump' as the family would, once again, frantically race off in all directions, on every available means of transport, to round up Nathan from his latest expedition.

I often wondered what the supermarket workers thought when they found my many abandoned shopping trolleys half full of groceries. The ghostly shopper had struck again!

No such luck!

Nathan's ability to find ways of circumnavigating our feeble attempts to keep him safely in his own yard knew no bounds.

I still remember sitting with him on the deck one day while his father tried to ‘Nathan proof' our front gate.

Thinking he'd done a pretty good job, Colin invited Nathan to try it out for size.

Nathan cracked the gate's new opening system on his first attempt. It was back to the drawing board!

There were many nights when I would lie in bed after such a day, wondering if our attempts were more like entertainment for Nathan. I could see him rubbing his hands in glee at the next problem his pathetic parents could think of for him to solve!

Fast forward to age five. School!

Surely this would entertain Nathan long enough to stem the tide of his ever increasing interest in ‘things next door', and his Dr Livingston expeditions! No such luck.

By the end of term one, Nathan's school had prepared an all points bulletin strategy to cope with our son's exploits outside of school grounds. They were wonderful in how they just got on with it!

But I'm sure that by the time Nathan left primary school, there was an audible sigh of relief that could be heard far and wide.

We had to shift gear! This ‘hobby' of Nathan's was getting seriously scary. We had begun to realise that this Houdini act was not a passing fancy for Nathan, but something he was intent on (even obsessive about) doing.

My trusty tool, the Internet, was a godsend as I began to search for answers to this obsession.

I quickly found an article about wandering by children with Down Syndrome. Written by another parent, her experiences could have been our own with Nathan.

Further reading revealed that not all children develop this wandering addiction, but those who do often run their parents ragged with their ability to get past any gadgets, devices and barriers that parents put in place.

I read that Nathan's behaviour had a name, ELOPEMENT, "an insatiable need to explore, overcoming the normal hesitation of child separation from parental care and in defiance of normal boundaries". It certainly ticked all the boxes!

Yes, this description fit Nathan perfectly.

Finally we had an answer to Nathan Houdini Livingston Hartley!

Worried

We realised that knowing this tendency is not uncommon didn't solve our problem. But at least we knew what we were dealing with, and had some idea of what was going on in that brain of his.

Over the years we spent many hundreds of dollars, pulled our hair out, and went greyer in the trying with our constant attempts to keep Nathan in his own backyard.

After we bought our own house, with great thought about Nathan's exploits, we enlisted the support of Enable, which helped us by installing non-climbable pool fencing at key places around the property.

Complete the picture with a pop-up latch gate, and we thought we were sorted.

But, inevitably, someone would leave the gate open (our other son has Attention Deficit Disorder; need I say more).

Then, someone stole the latch from the gate! Nor was carefully planned and executed fencing foolproof after all. Back to the pulling of hair and the bottles of dye!

Fast forward a few years, and Nathan was now 13, still needing an occasional adventure fix.

The distance he could now travel was in the multiple kilometres. He thought nothing of crossing major roads with heavy constant traffic. Nathan continued to climb into people's parked cars while they were sitting in them. He even invited himself into an off duty police officer's home!

On other occasions he took a shine to people's trampolines, and once disappeared out of his bed during the early hours of the morning. We were becoming seriously worried about Nathan's safety. To say that our bed time routine began to resemble ‘lock down' in a maximum security prison is an understatement. Dead bolts, keys and locks were the order of the day!

But Nathan hadn't finished... he simply started climbing out of his brother's bedroom window!

Ben is an extremely heavy sleeper. Nathan's unsubtle climbing out of his brother's window may as well have been stampeding elephants, for Ben would never hear anything!

Our local police came to know Nathan well. Heck, they had virtually watched him grow up! Over the next two years, a chance conversation with one of the constables gave us food for thought. The local Alzheimer's organisation was using a new tracking product that enabled police to find a wandering person within 300 metres using an aerial tracking system. Could this help us?

Alas, it was for dementia sufferers only, but it got me thinking... and back to the Internet!

Eureka!

I soon discovered that no one was offering this type of technology in New Zealand.

I widened my search, and quickly found a company in Australia. David Skellern, the owner of GoGPSlive and an ex pat New Zealander, read my desperate plea for help.

His reply was so encouraging! He would be delighted and very willing to assist however he could. Over the next few months David sent several locators for us to try, until we settled on the one that suited Nathan best.

This device, which works through satellites, would not only alert us via our mobile if Nathan left the property, but could accurately pinpoint his location to within a few metres. All we had to do was log into the GoGPS website, and the satellite would find him!

After clocking hundreds of Internet and phone hours, plus meeting personally with David when he flew over to see us, we are honoured to now call him a family friend.

We have also become passionate advocates for his products.

Eye in the Sky

I guess it was inevitable that David would ask us if we would be interested in promoting the locators to the wider public in New Zealand. And so our own business,TrakaKiwi, was born.

Nathan happily wears his tracker at home, when he's out with us or his support worker and, of course, at night time.

Initially he gave it at a nickname and put some of his favourite stickers on the tracker. Today, at the grand old age of 14, Nathan has moved past the need for stickers, (baby stuff!) and wears it as it is.

The school Nathan attends loves having an ‘eye in the sky' to help them locate Nathan if he disappears (this still happens regularly).

We sleep better knowing that an alarm will wake us if Nathan leaves our property, and that we can locate him just by logging onto the website, then hopping into the car (we can see his location instantly). We now don't need to involve the Police to find Nathan.

We fret less and, even better, we no longer imagine where he is or what could be happening to him when he is on his explorations. We're just glad he's now safe and that we have hopefully come to the end of some very stressful years for our family.

Help for others

We are all presented with life changing decisions. For us it was the birth of a child with special needs. For someone else it may be an ageing parent whose care and safety needs change as the years go on. The loss of independence, the fear of being safe, can be a daunting prospect at times like these!

We began TrakaKiwi because we want other families and professionals to know that affordable technology is available to help with wandering.

We also hope that by sharing our story, you will know that you are not alone with this stressful problem!

6 trakakiwi Q&As

1 What's needed? Any 3G Phone with the ability to receive Internet and Google Maps can be used with TrakaKiwi.

2 What are the costs? The purchase of a SIM card from your preferred provider, ongoing bundle data usage, plus GoGPSlive membership of $42 per month.

3 How many phone numbers can be linked to trakakiwi's SOS function? Up to five phone numbers, plus unlimited email addresses.

4 Are there extra costs if we have more than one tracker? No. Your monthly membership can include multiple locators, and a discount is available if you want to buy multiple devices.

5 Is the tracker covered by a warranty? Yes, there is a 12 month guarantee.

6 What if I don't want the SOS or two way calling features? They can be disabled or reactivated at any time.