Two men lost for hours in the woods outside Belleville, Ont., were found within minutes with the help of a thermal imaging drone, police say.
Investigators say one of the men called police to report he and a friend were lost in a swampy area east of the city around 9 a.m. Monday.
The man told police the pair had been lost in the woods for for several hours.
“Both men had become cold overnight and the one male did not have proper footwear to be walking through wet / swampy land,” Belleville police spokesperson Jeff Green said in an email to Global News.
“The men attempted to use the compass on their phone to navigate their way to safety however it was not working properly and they ended up calling the Belleville Police for assistance.”
Green says officers were on the ground in the area by 9:21 a.m., the service’s drone was in the air by 9:34 a.m. and the men were located with the help of the device’s thermal imaging camera by 9:38 a.m.
“The drone not only found the lost persons in less than 4 minutes, but also minimized the resources required and can obviously cover a large search area in a much more efficient time than officers can do on foot,” Green said.
“The drone was definitely a very effective tool available to the members responding.”
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Footage from the drone provided by police show officers trudging through bush before meeting up with the two missing men, who were ultimately located roughly 500 metres east of Haig Road.
The men, aged 55 and 33, were assessed at the scene by paramedics and taken to hospital for precautionary measures, police said.
Other than being cold, Green said neither of the men were hurt.
With thermal imaging capabilities, a large spot light and an audio speaker, Green says the police drone has been become a “a very valuable tool for a variety of police functions.”
As well as being helpful for lost and missing person calls, Green says the drone — a DJI M30T — is used to watch over large gatherings, for suspect apprehensions, crime scene mapping and has been called in to help the Belleville Fire Department find hot spots at fires.
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