Drone program helps Burlington police rescue missing man

BURLINGTON, N.C. (WGHP) — A high-tech police drone helped Burlington officers find an 81-year-old man who had gone missing from his care facility last week.

After more than an hour of searching, it wasn’t officers on the ground who spotted him first. It was a heat signature detected by the drone’s thermal imaging camera, leading officers to find him cold and disoriented in a creek.

Police say the man, who had dementia, wandered away from a care facility. Officers began searching but had no clear direction of travel. That’s when Matthew Cook, a drone pilot stationed at the department’s Real Time Crime Center, deployed the drone, which quickly identified a heat signature in a creek bed about a block away.

“I was definitely stressed. I was definitely worried for his well-being, considering he had been missing for over an hour,” Cook said. “Didn’t know how long he’d been in the creek. It was fairly chilly out, and the water should be a lot colder than the air temperature. I was worried about hypothermia or any kind of injuries he may have sustained falling into the creek … I was glad that we could get him out.”

While officers searched on foot, Cook was piloting the drone remotely using a modified Xbox controller from the Real Time Crime Center.

Unlike most police drones, which must remain within an operator’s line of sight, Burlington police have FAA approval to fly beyond visual range, allowing them to cover greater distances faster.

“I started scanning the area using the drone’s thermal imaging,” Cook said. “That’s when I saw a heat signature near an embankment inside a creek. I zoomed in, confirmed it was a person, and it appeared to be the man we were looking for.”

Even after officers arrived, they couldn’t immediately see the man from the road. Cook, watching the live drone feed, guided them step by step until they located him, pulled him to safety and provided life-saving aid. The man was taken to a hospital for treatment and has since recovered.

Currently, Cook is the department’s only full-time drone pilot, and the drones operate five days a week. Police hope to expand to seven-day-a-week coverage by adding more pilots, making sure drones can respond to emergencies at all times.

“This technology is already making a difference,” Cook said. “If we didn’t have it, we might not have found him in time.”