It is estimated that nearly 2,000 people get lost in the woods each year in the United States.  While most of these individuals are eventually reunited with their families, many never make it home.  As a means of better preparing would be hikers, a new study by SmokyMountians looked at over 100 reports from the last 25 years to better understand why people go missing in the woods, and how they are able to survive.  Of the survivors in the study, 41% of them got lost simply by accidentally straying from their trail with another 16% falling off the trail, both not being able to find their way back.  Andrew Herrington, a wildlife ranger in the Smokies, said “If you’re lost off trail, you’re most likely going to have to spend the night.”  And that is exactly what happened to a man in Maryland this past summer.

On July 22, 2019, 44 year old Jason Blake Mabee from Ellicott Cit, MD was seen in the area of College Avenue in Elliot City.  It was roughly 3 am and he was walking about wearing black gym shorts, a gray T-shirt, black socks, and no shoes.  Though Jason is an avid athlete who often ventures out for runs, his family immediately became concerned as they knew he was going through some undisclosed medical issues at the time.  His family filed a missing persons report on the morning of the 23rd, several days later and there was still no news as to Jason’s whereabouts.  When 36 year old Julian Bustos saw a Facebook post asking for more volunteers to look for Jason, specifically those with drones, he knew it was time to step up.

Julian is the owner of Icebreakers Cafe in Laurel, MD and a photographer.  Both men have children in the same pre-K class.  It was clear to him that he could help find Jason.  He immediately began charging the batteries for his DJI Mavic Pro drone, one of the best selling, most reliable drones on the market.  On the Facebook post he commented “I only have enough batteries for about 90-100 minutes of flight, [I] want to make every minute count.”  Once his batteries were ready, Julian met up with the other volunteers, one of whom also had a drone, and police from Howard County at the Columbia Academy: Thunder Hill Preschool’s parking lot off of Route 108 in Columbia to begin another search.  Police and volunteers had spent the previous days searching for Jason on foot in areas he was known to travel through with no luck.  But now, with two drone operators volunteering they began to feel more hopeful.

The two drone operators agreed to search opposite areas of the designated search zone, one to the north and one to the south.  Julian chose the southern portion of the search zone.  After looking at the map of the area to search Julian noticed that there was a river and some ponds in the southern part of the map.  He said, “I thought a person trying to survive would probably stay close to water, so when I saw a river and a couple ponds on the map, I decided to stop and fly the drone straight to the river.”  After having his drone in the air for only three minutes Julian saw something.  “I planned to fly down the river from where I was, but then I saw him so close to the road, maybe 100 feet away. It was one of the first images I saw,” Julian said.  He wanted to fly his drone down closer to the person on the ground, but couldn’t because there were power lines in the way.  Still, the camera on the drone provided Julian with such a detailed view, that he was able to identify the clothes as matching what Jason was reportedly wearing.

Julian kept his camera hovering over the location where he had found Jason and called the police.  “I was hovering my drone for about 20 minutes over Jason, keeping an eye on him the whole time,” Julian said. “He didn’t move at all. I was thinking the worst — he looked lifeless.”  Finally, the police arrived on seen and were able to follow the path down to a steep hill where Jason had fallen with the visual input from the drone.  It was just in time too as Julian had only a few minutes of flight time left on his battery and wanted to be able to use the drone to safely guide the police to Jason.

Without the aid of the drone Jason may never had been found on time.  Julian remarked how he was not the first volunteer to search that area of the woods, “The other volunteer who was there before me was so close, but she couldn’t get down to see him. He could have died there. Luckily I went to the same place and looked from the air. That made the difference.”

The search party had planned to search for Jason from sunrise to sunset that day, 5 days after Jason was reported missing.  Because the team was equipped with drones they successfully found Jason in record time.  When the police reached Jason he was weak and injured, but still conscious and able to communicate with them. 

He was flown to the University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore with life-threatening injuries.  Not long after he was reported to be in fair condition.  His family expressed their immense gratitude to the police and all the volunteers who spent 5 days looking for Jason.  After all the attention this brought to Julian he went on to say, “I don’t feel like a hero. I didn’t do anything extraordinary to find Jason.  I’m happy that Jason was alive.  I just hope he recovers and gets back to his family and children as soon as possible.”  In response to the success Julian had in helping find Jason, he set up @dronelife_usa.  It is a community service program that he hopes will serve as a connection between drone pilots, first responders, and the community to help in situations where there is a missing person or a life to be saved.

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