Drone manages to find missing woman who’d fallen and broken her leg in woods
A woman with a broken leg and no phone battery who had been missing for eight hours in woodland was found using drones.
She went missing near Faversham, in Kent, on Sunday and the emergency services were called around midnight.
It is believed the woman became stuck when she attempted to make a phone call from the woodland before her phone ran out of battery.
State-of-the-art drones with infrared cameras were launched by rescue teams to search two areas of the woodland.
The drone pilot and firefighters were able to locate the woman in the woods after two hours of searching.
The crew created a makeshift splint to support her broken leg and carried her on a stretcher about 300 metres through woodland to the road, before she was handed to the care of paramedics.
The firefighter involved in the rescue, Ali Gilfillan, said: ‘You can’t describe the feeling of finding a missing person, and in those situations it can be like looking for a needle in a haystack.
‘But this is what we are trained for – our skills combined with modern technology, and effective joined up working between blue light services, we really can achieve some amazing outcomes.
‘We’re so pleased to have found the lady, and we hope she has a speedy recovery.’
Kent Fire and Rescue Service technical rescue supervisor Jim Chaston said: ‘The drones are fantastic pieces of kit that we use quite often these days – whether that’s helping to locate missing people, or flying over fires to get a better view and understanding of fire spread, search for hot spots, assess damage and structural stability, and provide evidence for fire investigation.
‘Technology within the fire service has come such a long way, and we’ll continue evolve and adapt to make sure we’ll always be able to help people when they need us most.’
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