Delta police use drone to find ‘high-risk’ missing person
Posted August 1, 2023 5:03 pm.
After a high-risk person with “dementia-like symptoms” disappeared from Delta Hospital on Saturday, police managed to track them down using an infrared drone.
The Delta Police Department (DPD) says officers were called just after 10:20 p.m. to assist in finding a person who had walked out of the hospital. Police say the person “had been admitted to hospital for physical medical issues, which were complicated by potential dementia-like symptoms.”
Delta Police found a missing person who had walked away from a hospital at night by using a drone equipped with an infrared camera.
Police responded to a reported possible sighting of the person at Dugald Morrison Park but came out without any positive results.
With that search unsuccessful, police then brought in a drone equipped with a spotlight and an infrared camera to help with their search through the night.
The drone didn’t find anything on its first run, so police opted to extend their search to nearby properties and fields.
“During this expanded search, the drone’s technology proved invaluable. Following the detection of a heat signature, the DPD team used the spotlight and zoom cameras technology on the drone to precisely pinpoint the individual’s location in a brush area,” reads a release from the department.
Police say the person’s location was about 100 metres into the brush from the bottom of 57th Street and the turf field at Dugald Morrison Park, adding the person was found safe and returned to the hospital.
