GPS, heat-sensing hardware helped in Boy Scout rescue

Computerworld - Global Positioning System equipment -- and rescue dogs -- were key to the rescue of a Greensboro, N.C., Boy Scout found alive and in good condition yesterday after a three-day search in a rugged section of Blue Ridge Parkway National Park in North Carolina.

"It was a combination of a couple of things" that led rescuers to Michael Auberry, 12, who had been missing since Saturday while on a Boy Scout camping trip, said paramedic Mike Lane, captain of the Wilkes Rescue Squad, one of dozens of emergency groups that helped in the search. Auberry had been camping in the Doughton Park section of the park with six other boys and three parents when he wandered off unseen by anyone at the campsite, according to officials. Doughton Park is about 35 miles northwest of North Wilkesboro, N.C.

Later that day, hundreds of rescuers fanned out across the mountain terrain with search dogs, GPS devices and heat-sensing equipment -- including thermal cameras that can locate people by sensing their body heat, Lane said. Handheld heat-sensing units were used, as were airborne infrared units that were flown overhead in North Carolina State Highway Patrol helicopters.

The handheld thermal cameras, sometimes used by firefighters to find victims in smoky buildings and to locate pockets of fire inside walls, have a wide range and are helpful because they can "see" through leafy cover and other barriers, Lane said.

"If we're within 15 minutes behind you [during a search], it can actually see your footprints where you've been" by sensing heat tracks on the ground, he said.

The Eagle Imager 160 Thermal Imaging Cameras are made by Scott Health & Safety of Monroe, N.C. The GPS equipment used included Magellan SporTrak handheld units from Santa Clara, Calif.-based Magellan Navigation Inc.

Hundreds of rescuers covered the areas where the boy was thought to be wandering, Lane said. Footprints, places where the boy sat down to rest, spots where Auberry "doodled" in the dirt with a stick -- even a place where he wrote his name in the dirt -- were found and marked with GPS transmitters. By giving the coordinates of Auberry's wanderings, the GPS units essentially mapped the boy's route. Searchers also used the GPS technology to mark the locations of a number of items they found, including a potato chip bag, an empty trail mix bag, a sock and a U.S. Army mess kit that Auberry had been carrying, Lane said.

As more GPS data was collected, the boy's route became clearer. "He was making his way down" toward the campsite after apparently climbing into the hills, Lane said. "He'd been walking in circles just trying to find his way out."