Photographer Finds Missing 6-Year-Old Using A Drone With A Thermal Camera

Recently, a photographer named Steve Fines proved once again that technology, when used right, has the ability to save lives. At the hands of the photographer, a drone with a thermal camera helped to save a 6-year-old boy who had been missing for 10 hours in 30-degree cold.

Last Tuesday, 6-year-old Ethan Haus from Becker, Minnesota got off the school bus and rushed to play with his dog Remmie. Right after that, the child was nowhere to be found.

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Image credits: MNSheriffs

With no trace of what might have happened to the boy, a search operation was started.

Image credits: Steve Fines

More than 600 volunteers joined the efforts to find Ethan, however, the search was made difficult by the cold, as the temperature had plummeted below 30 degrees.

Image credits: Steve Fines

Almost 8 hours after the boy went missing, his footsteps had been found by the volunteers. That’s when professional photographer, Steve Fines, who was using his drone with a thermal camera for hours, finally received the direction in which to look for the boy. “I had seen the shape that I thought was the child and dog,” Fines told KARE 11. After 10 hours of exhausting searching, Fines located the boy with his camera.

Image credits: Steve Fines

Ethan was found about a mile and a half away from his home. The boy was cold but paramedics confirmed that he is in good health.

Image credits: Steve Fines

While the photographer rightfully received many praises for participating in this incredible search of the missing boy, he didn’t forget to thank all of the community that helped to make the search successful.

Image credits: billkellerfox9

“I just wanted to give a heartfelt thank you to all the folks who have reached out to me after my drone and thermal camera helped find Ethan a couple nights ago in Sherburne County. While I was running the camera that found him and some of the news stories have focused on that, I only knew in which direction to look because volunteers on the ground had found a footprint that pointed me in the right direction. I knew which areas had already been searched because of the excellent coordination of the Sherburne County Sheriff. I had other volunteers running radios to coordinate ground search parties – the people moving across really rough ground to find him,” Fines wrote in his Facebook post.

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