Responders managed to rescue an elderly kayaker who became stranded on the Grand River using a drone and a location-based cellphone application, officials said.
The Ingham County Sheriff’s Office, Mason Fire Department and the county’s 911 dispatch center worked to find the kayaker, a 78-year-old woman, after she became “stuck along a steep bank of the Grand River” on July 14, officials said in a news release. They did not disclose where along the river she became stuck.
Dispatchers kept the woman on the phone and used the “What3Words” app to find her location, officials said.
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“This technology divides the world into a grid of 10 feet by 10 feet squares, assigning each square a unique combination of three words that can be provided to responders to narrow down the search area,” the release said. “Dispatch was able to plot her approximate location, giving responders an accurate starting point despite her being in a remote and wooded area with limited visibility.”
Sheriff’s deputies found the woman in less than four minutes using a drone, and firefighters recovered her, they said. She was not injured.
“The rescue serves as a good reminder of the importance of pre-planning safety measures when engaging in outdoor activities, and to consider downloading location apps such as What3Words for emergency situations,” officials said in the release.
Contact Ken Palmer at kpalmer@lsj.com. Follow him on X @KBPalm_lsj.
This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: Elderly kayaker rescued from Grand River in Ingham County with help of phone app
Reporting by Ken Palmer, Lansing State Journal / Lansing State Journal
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