{"id":47597,"date":"2021-03-31T20:01:23","date_gmt":"2021-04-01T02:01:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/shiprock-search-and-rescue-lands-drone-of-its-own\/"},"modified":"2021-04-01T02:01:23","modified_gmt":"2021-04-01T02:01:23","slug":"shiprock-search-and-rescue-lands-drone-of-its-own","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/shiprock-search-and-rescue-lands-drone-of-its-own\/","title":{"rendered":"Shiprock Search and Rescue lands drone of its own"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Justin
Justin Succo, engineer at Bisti Fuels, prepares a new drone for a demonstration flight. The fuels company donated money to help Shiprock Search and Rescue acquire the drone.<\/span>Andy Hawkins\/ Bisti Fuels Co.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

FARMINGTON \u2013 Almost one year ago, Shiprock Search and Rescue learned just how beneficial drones could be, only a little too late. Today, Shiprock Search and Rescue can fly high knowing the group has a search and rescue drone of its own.<\/p>\n

Andy Hawkins, community engagement manager for Bisti Fuels Co., said the company first met the Shiprock Search and Rescue team just after the COVID-19 lockdowns started on the Navajo Nation. Yolanda Benally, a community engagement specialist with Bisti Fuels, was contacted on a Sunday night from a \u201cfrantic\u201d family whose grandmother lived next to the mine. The family\u2019s grandmother had gone missing.<\/p>\n

Because of the lockdowns, family members couldn\u2019t travel to look for her, so they reached out to Benally for help because mine workers had essential worker exemptions. The company agreed and looked for the woman in the dark, in pouring rain for several hours as the temperature dropped into the 20s.<\/p>\n

When the sun came up, the family contacted Shiprock Search and Rescue\u2019s Eric Trevizo who joined the search. Trevizo asked if the mine had a drone to help put eyes on areas that were difficult to reach by foot or ATV.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately, that story does not have a happy ending as the grandmother passed away from (hypothermia),\u201d Hawkins said. \u201cHowever, out of the event we met Eric and were introduced to his group. Over the next several months, we had conversations with Eric about his new group and why they did not have their own drone to assist in searches.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"From
From left to right, Navajo Nation Delegate Eugenia Charles-Newton; Andy Hawkins, community engagement manager with Bisti Fuels Co.; and Eric Trevizo, commander with Shiprock Search and Rescue; look at the drone and iPad donated in part by the fuel company.<\/span>Andy Hawkins\/ Bisti Fuels Co.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Trevizo\u2019s team was already interested in acquiring a drone, but it was $10,000, and that was not feasible for the group, even with Trevizo\u2019s previous fundraising efforts. So Bisti Fuels \u201cstruck a deal, if he could raise the first $5,000, Bisti Fuels would match that with another $5,000 and purchase the drone for the group,\u201d Hawkins said.<\/p>\n

The drone boasts a mounted 8K camera with thermal imaging that can help distinguish between a person and landforms, such as trees and rocks, and can even tell what the object is in thermal imaging mode.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor example, if a missing child sits down under a bush, the camera can show the thermal image of the child under the bush,\u201d Hawkins said.<\/p>\n

The drone comes with three batteries that can last up to 40 minutes of flight time each, allowing the drone to cover a large area in a short amount of time, especially the places that are hard to access by way of foot or ATV. It is also capable of flying a pre-programmed grid.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is really a huge jump in capabilities for Shiprock Search and Rescue, and sometime very soon, this drone will find a lost or missing person and save a life,\u201d Hawkins said.<\/p>\n

\"From
From left to right, Dana Resmini, engineer with Bisti Fuels; Justin Succo, engineer with Bisti Fuels; Navajo Nation Delegate Eugenia Charles-Newton; and Navajo Nation Delegate Amber Crotty. Justin Succo demonstrates the thermal camera capabilities to the delegates using a drone that was partially donated by the fuels company.<\/span>Andy Hawkins\/ Bisti Fuels Company<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Both sides held up their end of the deal, and Bisti even threw in a full-size iPad to use as the monitor for the pilot.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs Navajo Transitional Energy Co.\u2019s contract mine operator, we were pleased that we were able to have such a big impact on the local community,\u201d Hawkins said. \u201cWe wish Eric great success in his future search and rescue efforts.\u201d<\/p>\n

mmitchell@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

equipped with thermal imaging<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":47598,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,138,443,1774],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-47597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-new-mexico","tag-san-juan-county-new-mexico","tag-shiprock"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47597"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47597\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47597"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=47597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}