The distress call went out at 4:15 p.m. Two hikers and a dog got lost in the woods after mistakenly straying from a trail near Devil’s Head, a mountain summit in the Rampart Range 40 miles south of Denver.
Just two years ago, locating the lost hikers might have taken all night, according to Morris Hansen, vice president of the Douglas County Search and Rescue team, which responded to the call.
This time, search-and-rescue officials needed just two hours.
The difference was an unmanned aerial vehicle, or drone, which saved the crew hours of foot-hunting and hundreds of dollars on expensive search-and-rescue efforts …
Drones are used for everything from saving lives to land surveying, but training lags behind
The Denver Post | July 29, 2017
