Rotordrone Rescue! Quadcopter saves beagle puppy

A one-year-old beagle named “Harley” is home safe with his family, thanks to the Branford, CT firefighting team and their DJI Phantom quadcopter! He wandered into a swamp with high cattails in frigid weather and had been missing for over 24 hours. Laura Burban, the director of the Dan Cosgrove Animal Shelter, recounts the story:

At one point when I was way out on the outskirts of the marsh, I heard what sounds like a motorized helicopter, like the kind kids have. And I am thinking, what the hell is that. I look up. and it was the drone. When I was getting in my wet suit on I heard that they had contacted the chief [Jack Ahern] and asked him if he could bring out the drone. And he had.

“You could see they were positioning the drone in different areas. It was so difficult for us to see the puppy because the puppy colors blended in perfectly with the landscape of the swamp.

“My theory is that the puppy probably found a dry spot within those cattails because he wasn’t soaked when we found him. He had found a dry refuge. He was exhausted from screaming all night long and curled up and decided somehow to sleep. Between the commotion of us moving back and forth between the cattails and this weird noise above its head from the drone, I think he probably got up and said what the heck is going on and started to move.”

After being treated for hypothermia at the vet’s, Harley went home to his family.