A Saskatchewan RCMP officer was under the Big Apple’s spotlight Tuesday afternoon.
Cpl. Doug Green from Saskatoon was a featured guest on the Katie Couric show, filmed in New York. The segment explored how drones are used throughout the world.
Green is the RCMP “F” division’s traffic reconstructionist. He was operating an unmanned aerial vehicle, referred to as a Dragan Flyer X4-ES drone, when police rescued a man near St. Denis, Sask. last spring.
RCMP were called to a single vehicle rollover just after midnight on May 9, 2013, but police couldn’t find the victim. STARS air ambulance searched over the area but also had no luck finding the driver.
Green was called in with the drone, but before Green started flying the vehicle, the driver called 911. The 26-year-old man didn’t know where he was and was only dressed in a T-shirt and pants. He had lost his shoes and temperatures were near freezing.
SaskTel helped police establish a GPS location of the phone. The man was about two miles from the collision scene but, again, police and the STARS air team were unable to find the driver.
Crews were only able to successfully find the 26-year-old man after Green launched the drone and located the driver using the unmanned vehicle’s heat-seeking technology. The man was curled up in a ball at the base of a tree.
Video shot from the Dragan Flyer drone that night was posted online and caught the attention of Couric, best known for her work as a journalist.
Green outlined the technology, ran through the rescue mission and gave an update on the victim while on Couric’s show.
“He was very grateful we were able to find him because he had no idea where he was,” Green told Couric.
“I’m sure he is very grateful, and that you had this piece of technology to assist you,” Couric responded.
Green told media after his appearance that he enjoyed being on the show. He was excited to showcase the RCMP’s aerial technology on the international stage.
“It says a lot about our organization and our program that we can use our technology for good purposes and that this was a successful mission to rescue this injured driver,” he said.
Couric also explored military drones and online retailer Amazon’s new delivery drones on the episode.
Watch video from the RCMP rescue mission below: