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Police say the life of an intoxicated 47-year-old man found unconscious late Friday night was saved thanks to the help of drones.
The man was found in a dumpster, where he’d gone to shield himself from the cold in the Rural Municipality of Corman Park.
Chief Robert Duttchen with the Corman Park Police Service said officers received multiple calls just before midnight to reports of a suspicious man walking on Highway 41 without proper winter clothing.
An officer tried locating the man on foot, but was unsuccessful. He was only able to identify footprints in the snow.
“The officer who started tracking the footprints might have eventually led us there,” Duttchen said. “But obviously it takes more time to cover the ground on foot than it does to cover the ground with an aerial survey.”
That’s where the use of drones and infrared cameras came into play. Another officer came equipped with these tools to assist in the search — technology that ended up saving the man’s life.
“We’ve used it before for locating missing people and looking for a youth who have fled,” Duttchen said. “But I think this is our first life-saving deployment of the drone.”
Officers eventually found the man inside a dumpster, where he had lost consciousness.
Police said with the wind chill, temperatures at the time felt like between –20 C and –24.
“[It’s] highly likely that had he remained in that dumpster in an intoxicated state, he would have frozen to death,” Duttchen said.
“So I cannot commend our officers enough for their quick action and their deliberate and systemic approach to conducting this area search.”
Police say they kept the man in a holding cell overnight so he could sober up and they could assess him for cold-weather related injuries. No such injuries have been reported.