KENNEDY TOWNSHIP, Pa. — Crews spent hours searching for a 5-year-old autistic boy who wandered from a playground during recess in Kennedy Township on Tuesday.
It wasn’t until Justin Melanson’s drones went up that they found the missing boy.
Melanson is the Founder of Avio Industries. He said, “I instantly jumped because I was looking…I didn’t really know what I was looking at, then realized he was standing there.”
Melanson and his drone, featuring his own design, are credited with finding missing 5-year-old Jedidiah Jackson during Tuesday’s 7-hour search.
“I saw this small dot that you’ll see in the video, and I looked very, very hard at that,” said Melanson. “I thought it was moving, and it looked like it was vertical.”
His drone is equipped with a 200x times zoom camera and can deflect interference from other airborne technology, including power lines.
But there was one feature he said saved the day.
“If you’re flying a thermal drone right now and you look down at the ground, or try to look into the woods, you’re not going to be able to see anything because everything is really hot from the sun,” said Melanson.
He went about a half mile away from the scene into a shaded area and found Jedidiah’s heat pattern under the tree branches. He said it took minutes to find the boy once he searched the shaded areas.
“I tracked him through the woods a little bit,” said Melanson. “It was hard to catch him when he came out, and there he was.”
Melanson and his team are typically hired for drone consulting and training. When he’s called to a scene like Tuesdays, he volunteers his time, using his patented equipment to help law enforcement and save lives.
Melanson said, it was a team effort to bring Jedidiah home.
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