Rescue drones now find missing paddlers

[Glenn MacGrady]

"Drone manufacturer DJI has mapped more than 400 successful rescues involving drones worldwide, including 231 in North America. In one example, two missing paddlers on the French Broad River in North Carolina were rapidly detected by the thermal camera of a drone last June. The paddlers missed the take-out and were reported missing after nightfall. Whereas a ground search would’ve had to wait until the following morning, Connestee Fire Rescue launched a drone. The missing men were detected after a mere five minutes and 30 seconds of flight time."

The New, High-Flying Tech That's Revolutionizing The Search For Missing Paddlers And Campers

Discover how unmanned aerial vehicles are changing the game.

paddlingmag.com

Here's a video showing a drone application to help rescue swimmers at sea:

 

[Mason]

I think it was last year that the Valdez (AK) FD used drones in finding packrafters on the Tsaina River. Unfortunately, one drowned.

 

[Pseudonym]

That's a wonderful use of technology!

 

[yknpdlr]

The NYSDEC Forest Rangers have been using drones during SAR incidents for a few years already. I was on a search incident when one of the first drone flights was used. Pouring through dozens and dozens of images on a large screen monitor, an indistinct patch of flesh colored image was the source of great debate. Was it a bit of bare sand, or was it the subject without clothing? Since the drone was already packed away, rangers were sent to investigate on foot; it turned out to be bare ground. (the subject was in fact found some distance away two days later wearing no clothing) In actual use in the Adirondacks, even with IR capability (which assumes a live subject), dense leaf cover in heavily forested areas limits overflight visual usefulness. However, where we believe drones would be most useful is overflight imaging of shallow ponds or open marshes/swamps (too shallow for divers) and tangles of brush and dead logs on such shoreline that are difficult or dangerous for ground searchers to adequately cover. Helicopters, if available (not always a given), have typically been used for this type of search, at an obvious much greater expense.

On another SAR incident, a pair of inexperienced drone operator state police troopers got involved and met me with my search team in our assigned search block. Just then I heard on my radio that the subject had been found, deceased while dragging a deer he had killed. The troopers had no idea how to program their phone GPS with the given coordinates, about a half mile from us, so I led them to the scene. Upon later returning to our boat at the access point, their supervisor called to ask if they had photographed the scene. They had not, but thought they could fire up and fly the drone they had previously left at their boat. Again, they had no idea how to load the GPS coordinates I gave them into the drone. So they left without fully documenting the scene. It's gonna take some training to do it right.