WATERVLIET, N.Y. (NEWS10) — Last week, when 13-year-old Daishawa Wade was walking home from school with his friends, he wanted to walk by the Hudson River after they left. That’s when he slipped and fell down a ditch.
“I’m pretty sure I fell asleep when I fell, and then when I woke up, I couldn’t get out of the ditch,” Wade said.
His mother, Kassandra Dricsen, knew something was wrong when she arrived home and couldn’t find her son…
“He wasn’t there… And I got scared and started looking around Watervliet for him,” she said.
She also called Watervliet Police for help. Officer Dominick Harold, Patrolman at Watervliet Police Department, said they came up with a gameplay with her to help find her son. That’s when they could turn on his phone and get a ping. The ping showed that he was located north of 787.
“Once his phone was powered back on, she called him and said that he was having a panic attack and was down by the shore somewhere,” Officer Harold said.
That’s when Daishawa’s mother met with police at Hudson Shore Park to look for him.
“I immediately went to the wooded area behind Hudson shores, and that’s when we had the drone up in the air,” Officer Harold said.
Officer Eric Roy, Patrol Officer and PIO for Watervliet Police Department, said a similar search would have taken hours. With the thermal drone, it just took about five minutes to find him- without having to call the state police or other departments for assistance with boats or a helicopter.
“They have to assemble a team. Get to the equipment, get it out of the water, patrol the shoreline, and look for the kid,” Officer Roy said. “Sometimes, that can take hours to respond. At the same time, they are looking in the dark as well through the shoreline.”
Within minutes of Officer Roy flying the thermal drone, they were able to find his exact location.
“I was so happy that he was okay and he wasn’t hurt,” Kassandra Dricsen, mother of Daishawa Wade, said.
For Daishawa Wade, he was very thankful that the two police officers were able to get him out of the ditch.
