Drone and Thermal Camera Help Find Missing Boy

Few things are worse than a missing child. When six-year-old Ethan Haus disappeared while playing with his dog Remmie, the community of Sherburne County rallied with more than 600 volunteers. The story has a happy ending, and much of the credit goes to Steve Fines, a specialist in drone photography and thermal imaging. His equipment and his close work with volunteers helped bring Ethan and Remmie home.

It's true that drones still have their skeptics, but their value in the right place and time cannot be denied. Forget package delivery and other experiments; in an emergency or rescue operation, a drone can be vital to put "eyes in the air" and coordinate ground efforts. A compelling example comes from Sherburne County, Minnesota, a county of under 100,000 residents that went into crisis when Ethan went missing.

Ethan had returned from school, but went out to play with Remmie, his eight-year-old Brittany Spaniel, and both got lost. Authorities quickly organized a massive search, drawing 600 volunteers willing to face difficult terrain and below-freezing temperatures. One of those volunteers was Steve Fines of Fines Aerial Imaging, who specializes in drone photography, but also added a powerful resource to the search: an infrared camera.

With the clock approaching 2 a.m. (the search had been going on for ten hours), Fines used the information from ground volunteers (who had found a compatible footprint) to set a direction with the drone. Fines detected Ethan and Remmie inside a cornfield two and a half kilometers from home. He reported their location to authorities, and they were extracted within minutes, safe and sound.

Fines insists that his drone work was only a small part of an impressive team effort, but authorities acknowledge that without his experience and the thermal camera, Ethan and his dog might have spent many more hours in that field. In fact, they are already considering acquiring similar hardware in case such a situation recurs.

Source: PetaPixel