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Who'd have thought that the RCMP would have drones? Really good footage showing the effectiveness of FLIR
Single Vehicle Rollover – Saskatoon RCMP Search for Injured Driver with Unmanned Aerial Vehicle
On 2013-05-09 at 00:20 hours, Saskatoon RCMP received a call of a single vehicle rollover on Highway # 5 about 5 km east of St. Denis, Saskatchewan.
RCMP, along with St Denis and Vonda Fire Rescue and EMS from MD Ambulance, responded to the scene. Upon arriving at the scene, emergency responders could not locate the vehicle’s occupants. The examination of the scene indicated that at least one person had been in the vehicle and was injured. A ground search was conducted within 200 meters of the scene, but searchers were unable to locate anyone.
STARS Air Ambulance was contacted and agreed to attend with their night vision to see if they could detect and locate the injured person. STARS conducted an initial search of the 1000 meters surrounding the rollover, but were unable to locate anyone.
At 01:20 hrs, members from Saskatoon RCMP contacted Cpl. Doug Green, a Forensic Collision Reconstuctionist, requesting he attend with the Dragan Flyer X4-ES equipped with a forward looking infrared camera (FLIR). Cpl. Green arrived at 01:55 and discussed the situation with the on scene member.
At 02:10 hours, the driver of the vehicle, a 25-year-old male, called 911 from his cell phone. He indicated he was cold, did not know where he was and could give no directions to his location. He was only dressed in T-shirt (no jacket), pants and had lost his shoes. Temperatures at the time were near freezing.
With the help of SaskTel, a GPS location of the driver’s cell phone was obtained. Cpl. Green and Saskatoon RCMP established communication with the STARS Air Ambulance overhead and gave them the GPS coordinates. Cpl. Green then entered the coordinates into his GPS and drove to the location. Cpl. Green and STARS then went to the new location which was in a field 2 miles south of the rollover. Cpl. Green attempted to call to the driver over the loud hailer and used the siren to direct him towards his location. The driver did not respond to any of these attempts to contact him. STARS continued to search the area with their night vision and search light. Cpl. Green was joined in the search by several members of the Vonda Fire Department.
At 03:00, Cpl. Green launched the Dragan Flyer X4-ES (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle – UAV) equipped with a FLIR. Once the UAV was in the air a search was initiated in the area of the last known location of the driver. Three heat signatures showed up on the screen of the FLIR. Cpl. Green directed Vonda Fire Department members towards the first heat signature located in the trees 200 meters from the last known GPS location. Fire /Rescue members located the driver at this first location, curled up in a ball at the base of a tree next to snow bank. He was unresponsive and was quickly brought out to the road by Fire/Rescue and placed in an ambulance and was transported to hospital in Saskatoon. Without the UAV and FLIR, searchers would not have been able to locate the driver until daylight.
Saskatoon RCMP would like to thank STARS Air Ambulance, MD Ambulance and the Vonda and St Denis Fire Departments for their assistance in locating the injured driver.









