Drone medical emergency response trial gets read during marathon

A research project experimenting with drones to identify overexerted athletes in states of distress turned into a real-life emergency medical response operation last weekend, when UAVs deployed to monitor the Montréal Marathon spotted an exhausted runner collapsing.

The transformation of that research to quasi-proof-of-concept demonstration occurred as pilots for Canadian robotics research and development company InDro Robotics flew a pair of drones above Montréal Marathon runners to test their potential for identifying athletes in distress, and keeping tabs of their location in the chaotic throng of racing environments until emergency medical responders can find them. 

As it turned out, those capacities were considerable and most timely in spotting and dispatching care to the collapsed runner. 

InDro Robotics pilots were assisting in McGill University Health Centre’s “Medi-Drone” project headed by Dr. Valérie Homier, who is researching use…