The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
Drones to help rescue service find casualties
Unmanned aerial vehicles to save time in mountain rescue operations
Scotland’s busiest mountain rescue team is adding the use of drones to its equipment to save lives.
Lochaber Mountain Rescue Team – which covers Ben Nevis – is training members to operate the unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) to help pinpoint casualties.
The drones can cut down on fruitless hours of searching and hence speed up the rescue where time can be the difference between life and death.
Hi-tech imaging software is also used to aid the new search method.
One drone was deployed last week to find a woman with a leg injury. She had no phone signal making it harder to find her in more conventional searches.
The team were out again on Tuesday evening for a medical evacuation from Carn Mor Dearg. A coastguard rescue helicopter from Prestwick airlifted the casualty to Belford Hospital at Fort William. Their condition is unknown.
But afterwards the team revealed that on two of the rescues last week – to climbers on Long Climb on Ben Nevis and injured walker on Sgur á Bhuic in Glen Nevis – it deployed a drone.
“On Long Climb we used the UAV to try and locate the climbers so that we could advise the guys on summit the line of the lower,” said a spokesman.
“Unfortunately cloud level did not allow full deployment. On Sgurr á Bhuic we had a female with a leg injury and a drone was deployed to locate the casualty, as there is no phone signal in this location, so that the stretcher party could go straight to the casualty.
“While out in Glen Nevis we used the UAV to search selected areas and photograph. We then use special software which allows us to stitch together the photographs and we can then create a 3D image which allows us to visually check the areas covered by the UAV at base.
“We expect these will become standard procedure from now on where conditions allow.
“We have put two people through an operator’s course and will be putting more through in coming months.”
The area the team recently searched were also “potential locations for walkers Eric Cyl and Tom Brown – who have been missing separately for around two years.
Mr Brown, 65, of Lanarkshire, disappeared in the Glen Nevis and Steall area. Kilmarnock-born hillwalker Mr Cyl, 62, was reported missing a few weeks earlier after heading for a trip in the same area. Subsequent searches have drawn a blank.
Followers on Lochaber MRT’s Facebook have overwhelmingly backed the new use of drones. Graham Fraser wrote: “Great to see drones used constructively in remote areas.”