Grey nomads heading into remote areas can be forgiven for including a drone as part of their safety equipment supplies on future trips following an extraordinary rescue in Far North Queensland.
A group of four adults and a six-month-old baby had travelled up the Kirrama Range Road to look at Blencoe Falls when they found themselves on a dirt road pinned between two rising creeks.
Although the area was too remote to get mobile reception, a quick-thinking man came up with an innovative solution … and attached his mobile phone to a drone and flew it into the air to send an SOS via text message.
State Emergency Service area controller James Gegg told the ABC that it was a unique call for help.
“He was clever enough to think that if he typed the message on his phone and pressed send that it would keep trying to send until it got reception,” Mr Gegg said. “When he brought the drone back down he confirmed the message had been sent, so he did get reception … that raised the alarm and people were able to activate.”
The group had ‘swamped’ their car while trying to cross a creek the night before and had been forced to camped in a tent on the dirt road as ex-Tropical Cyclone Imogen dumped hundreds of millimetres of rain. In the morning, the drone had been launched and the rescue effort began.
Given the extensive damage to the roads caused by the wild weather, emergency services and Cassowary Coast Council staff needed a front-end loader and chainsaws to access the stricken travellers who were ‘extremely happy to see everyone turning up for them’.
Mr Gegg told the ABC that the rescue highlighted the need for people to plan ahead for their trips, particularly during severe weather events.
“Obviously in this case the group was very lucky and smart to think of using the drone to get a message out, but without that they would have been staying there until somebody missed them,” he said. “We highly recommend people going into remote areas to purchase a personal locator beacon … they’re fairly inexpensive and they can get an emergency alert out very quickly with your exact GPS location.”
Have travelled Aus including the remote outback for 60 years. Good preparation and minimising risk are the key to safe travel. I always carry a uhf and hf radio, a satphone and a plb. Have used them to get others out of trouble.
Excellent problem solving skills shown by this group.
Under what was likely a somewhat stressful situation, getting the mobile phone airborne for the signal to get through was a brilliant solution to their predicament.
Would not be surprised if the rest of the party now call this noble adventurer MacGyver.
Very well done!