HALIFAX – RCMP say a drone was used to help locate a family that got lost in the woods.
On Saturday at 4:30 p.m., two adults and their 17-month-old child entered the woods off the Highway 107 extension.
The Dartmouth family got lost and called police around 8:30 p.m.
Sgt. Linda Gray with Halifax District RCMP tells Global News that police tried using sirens to pinpoint where the family was but did not have any luck.
“They had tried to get a track with the K-9 unit but they weren’t able to get a good track so that’s when they decided to use the unmanned aerial system,” Gray said.
A drone was deployed, and the family was found in a heavily wooded area northeast of Topsail Lake.
Police located the family and walked them out of the woods around 2 a.m. on Sunday.
There were no injuries.
RCMP drones were put into service this year; in July, the drones were unveiled for the media.
“If we have a person potentially lost in the woods, or a child gone missing, we could potentially deploy it and use the thermal infrared camera to detect them in the woods,” RCMP Const. Mark Skinner, one of a handful of operators in the province with a special certificate from Transport Canada to fly the drones, said at the time.
The RCMP in Nova Scotia have five drones across the province; each costs $30,000.
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