Watch Mass. Police Rescue 19-Year-Old Lost in Swamp for 7 Hours
What to know
- Somerset police used a drone with a speaker to help locate a stranded 19-year-old man who was lost in swampy wetlands for seven hours.
- Officers called out the man and used a pre-recorded message broadcast from the drone to triangulate his position and safely reach him.
- The drone was also used to help officers and the 19-year-old safely walk out of the muddy area.
Massachusetts police used a drone to help rescue a man who was stranded in swampy wetlands for seven hours over the weekend.
Somerset police responded to a call late Sunday from a family concerned about a 19-year-old male who had become lost on a walk and didn't have a cellphone, WPRI-TV reports. The teen's calls could be heard by neighbors, but he couldn't be located in the wetlands.
“Muddy, nasty area where you wouldn’t want to be,” said Officer Brennan Cardoza, who waded through the swamp to find the lost man. “It was difficult to see, I had to call out for the gentleman. We were able to basically talk back and forth to each other, that was able to get me going in the right direction toward him.”
With boots on the ground, police deployed a drone to get an aerial view of the area to better locate the 19-year-old. The drone was equipped with a speaker that played a pre-recorded message for the man to hear.
“I sent the drone back out, and I let the individual know that we had officers in the woods, to keep calling out and that just played over and over and then as he called out our officers were able to pinpoint and triangulate his position and locate him,” said Officer Paul Trenholme, who operated the drone.
The officers were able to find the man, and they used the drone to help them safely exit the swampy area.
“We didn’t do anything that any other police officer wouldn’t have done,” said Cardoza.
