Sumner County first responders using drones to save lives
Sumner County EMA is beginning to see success with drones in their Search and Rescue toolbox. The agency recently responded to a welfare check that led them to a razor blade and a blood trail. The trail led into a dense cornfield which would have taken hours to search and it was nearly impossible to see the ground from a helicopter above. Sumner County EMA deployed a Skydio X2 with thermal capabilities and was able to locate a person in the field within minutes, saving the person’s life. Watch the video to learn how the agency uses drones for search and rescue.
- Sumner County's now using drones to help save lives.
- While responding to a welfare check last month, deputies spotted a
- blood trail and a razor blade. The evidence led to a
- large corn field, but the corn crop was too dense for anyone to
- see. This is some of the footage from their
- drone.
- Quick on their feet, first responders launched the drone,
- and within minutes, they
- were able to find their guy. So Ken Widner and Mickey Summers
- are here now with
- Sumner County EMA to talk more about some of the ways that they're using these
- drones to save lives. Thank you for being here, gentlemen.
- We appreciate it.
- Yes, ma'am.
- And we have a drone here. This is one of the many that y'all have, right,
- Ken?
- Mm-hmm. We've got seven.
- Okay. So tell me a little bit of the history.
- When did y'all decide to incorporate drones, um, into your search and rescue
- efforts, and why?
- So we've managed search operation for, for years.
- Mm-hmm.
- And typically, we use what we call items we have in our
- toolbox.
- Okay.
- So in that toolbox are, um,
- search personnel-
- Mm-hmm
- ... K9, helicopters, airplanes, um,
- neighborhood, you know, people in the neighborhood-
- Mm-hmm
- ... social media. And with the advent of
- drones, we, we've incorporated that because we work a lot on
- probability of detection.
- Okay.
- Uh, we utilize books that give us percentages on what
- people do, what Alzheimer's or children or people-
- Mm
- ... in a certain s- age group do. And we do different types of searches,
- hasty searches, uh, and a lot of people see a grid search.
- And a grid search is the slowest. Um, it, it produces the
- most, but it takes the longest amount of time.
- So with 20 people in a square mile, it takes 37 hours-
- Wow
- ... to search that square mile.
- Goodness.
- So we can search, obviously... Now, if we were looking, if, if CID was looking
- for evidence, we wouldn't wanna use this as much as
- people.
- Mm-hmm.
- But for this to find someone whose life might be in danger,
- it's quickly deployable and covers a lot of ground, um,
- in a short period of
- time.
- What, what's it been like, Mickey, since y'all have been using the drones?
- Any, any examples of, you know, cases where it's really come in vital,
- like the
- case we shared earlier?
- That case was very big.
- Mm.
- Um, that was actually... This is a new Skydio drone
- that we've just recently added
- to the fleet. We have two of these. Um, when our pilot got there-
- Mm-hmm
- ... uh, they'd been looking for the guy for,
- for a while.
- Wow.
- And within a couple minutes, he's like, "Hey, guys, I think I h- I have him here."
- Um, I mean, that's how quickly it happened.
- Mm-hmm.
- Um, you know, going into that corn field, even walking through it, would've been
- terrible just trying to walk through it with it being so tall.
- Wow.
- Um, it's a force multiplier, for sure.
- Um, you know, we utilize THP, uh, along with
- TBI as well, uh, but we can actually put these in the air
- and hopefully get
- started in case we need the bigger resources-
- Okay
- ... uh, such as a helicopter and airplane.
- How important is this, Ken, for all the other municipalities in Sumner
- County as well? Because y'all try to help everybody out
- with this.
- Yeah, we've used it for fire scenes. We had, um...
- We get called on, on grass fires to look for hotspots.
- Mm.
- We've been called on commercial fires to look, look on the roof of buildings.
- Um, so there, there's a lot of applications here.
- You know, and the thing about drones is you j- you can't just go out
- and fly them
- over people.
- Mm.
- Uh, Mickey actually oversees our program, and, and he's more
- attuned to what you can and can't do.
- And so, um, there are limitations.
- Okay.
- But, but we know those, and, and we've got a, a
- crew of pilots, and we're adding pilots to that.
- Okay.
- Um, so-
- How many pilots do y'all have now?
- We've got four pilots now.
- Okay.
- And we're looking to expand to, to eight or 10, and,
- and we're talking about that
- because the, the drone Part 107 pilot license is one
- step below a pilot license.
- Wow.
- So there's a lot that goes into to, to achieving a pilot
- license. Um, and that's a requirement that we've got, and, uh,
- and we've got guidelines that we operate under, and, and, uh,
- and we adhere to
- those.
- Awesome. Well, it's good to see y'all really taking
- advantage of the technology
- that's available to you and, and using this to, at the end of the day,
- protect the
- people of Sumner County. So thank for be, thank you for being here-
- Yes, ma'am
- ... and sharing this with us. We appreciate it.
- Folks, we're gonna have more information about
- the program at WKRN.com.
- Just look for the News Maker tab.
Watch Time
4 Mins 4 Secs