Injured Man Is First Person Saved By a Police Drone In Canada 187
AchilleTalon writes "As the US continues to grapple with the idea of letting drones fly through the country's airspace, our neighbors to the north have reported a new milestone for unmanned aerial technology: the first life saved using a drone. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police in the province of Saskatchewan announced yesterday that they successfully used the small Draganflyer X4-ES helicopter drone to locate and treat an injured man whose car had flipped over in a remote, wooded area in near-freezing temperatures. Zenon Dragan, president and founder of the Draganfly company that makes the drone, said in a statement: 'to our knowledge, this is the first time that a life may have been saved with the use of a sUAS (small Unmanned Aerial System) helicopter.'"
Re:Thats great.. (Score:4, Informative)
When they are used for search and rescue. The problem is that our police force has been lobbying to get them for law enforcement, to be used to further spy on and exert control over the populace. If law enforcement wants to have drones for the sole and limited purpose of search and rescue thats fine by me. Id prefer if I didnt need to worry about some agency watching my every physical move.
When you research this device on the manufacturer's website they are very very careful to NEVER specify the RANGE.
It can go 30mph (allegedly), and climb to 8000 feet but no range or duration is given, and it does this on a 5400mAh battery.
(My android tablet has a bigger battery).
I'd be very surprised if this thing could get out of sight of its operator.
Which means they could have just look for the car and followed his tracks or sent a dog. But instead this will be used as an excuse to equip every police force with one of these things, and they won't be restricted to search and rescue.