Such was the case for Ethan House when he got lost in a rural area of his hometown of Baker, Minnesota for hours. Ethan had just gotten off his school bus and was eager to play with his dog and possibly his best friend, Remington. Remington is a spaniel and his family dog. He and Ethan have been nearly inseparable since the family first had a Remington as a little pup.
Ethan’s parents used to take their son and pup out to play countless games and explore the rural properties in the area. But that day was different. When night fell, Ethan’s parents began to worry. When the fall season temperatures started dropping into the low 40s, they started to panic.
Soon the majority of the tight-knit community was conducting a community-wide search to find Ethan, and of course Remington too! More than 600 people volunteered to work together to find the little boy. Several legal agencies were also immediately on the scene offering their expertise, including calling in FBI K-9 units to track down the two. A government patrol helicopter was on scene.
Volunteer searchers and law enforcement scoured the area, searching the town of Baker, Minn., which is densely dotted with cornfields. Volunteers plowed cornfields. It had been ten hours since Ethan and Remington had been gone, and with the cold, pitch black night outside, his parents realized their worst nightmare had come true.
However, local man Steve Vines had something up his sleeve. Steve is a local drone operator who owns a drone company that takes aerial photography, Fines Aerial Imagine. Although he never used a drone in the missing persons case, he realized that the drone could detect heat and therefore could help find Ethan.
Authorities allowed Steve to use his drone, in a desperate attempt to find Ethan at the time. Sure enough, the drone almost immediately detected a dog-shaped “bright spot” in a cornfield, marking precisely where Ethan and Remington were. The boy and his puppy made it home safe and sound!
