AUSTIN, Texas — As more people enjoy the outdoors this summer, Austin-Travis County EMS said there's also been an uptick in people getting hurt while out on the trails. A new program ATCEMS launched back in January is helping first responders when it comes to those search and rescue calls.
The grant-funded program is called SPARTAN, and that stands for "Special Projects Aerial Recon Transport Aid Navigation" team. It's essentially a drone team, and now ATCEMS's first responders can use drones to help find people.
"We started planning back in the summer of 2020, recognizing a need to have more UAS support here in the community," said ATCEMS division chief Adam Johnson. "Our primary missions were to assist with search and rescue, to be able to get a drone out the door quickly, on our front line units, and get them up in the air on search and rescue calls to help us find patients or victims."
The extra help from a drone's vantage point can help get ATCEMS paramedics to victims quickly. Johnson said the drones can fly up to at least 400 feet in 45 mph winds.
"Most of our aircraft also have thermal sensors. Particularly at night, we can use those sensors to detect heat and find people who may be lost out in the wilderness, in the greenbelt," said Johnson.
That's been happening a lot lately, according to Johnson. This month, ATCEMS has been called out to more than 20 rescues. Most of the reports are people getting hurt on Austin's trails. On Tuesday alone, there were multiple traumatic injuries at parks around town, including one person who died from falling 30 feet near the Barton Creek Greenbelt.
"We've been active for six months and it's been a very busy six months for us," said Johnson.
Johnson said in the future, this program could use bigger drones to deliver critical medications to patients.
"The aircraft gets to the scene quickly and we're able to get up in the air. That's something that we were missing in the community and now are several teams that are able to provide that service," said Johnson. "We've been dispatched on about 35 public safety missions, a mix of search and rescue, assisting with fire suppression, helping with overwatch at vaccine sites to help with traffic management and things like that."
ACTEMS currently has 16 remote pilots that are certified by the FAA. It has an academy next week to add six more pilots to the team. ATCEMS will have one last academy in August, and by the end of the summer, the SPARTAN team will have 28 pilots.
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