
Lifeguard Drone Rescues Swimmer in Spain - nradov
http://www.thedrive.com/tech/22976/general-drones-auxdron-lifeguard-uav-rescues-swimmer-in-spain
======
JorgeGT
Thanks for sharing, I live a few km away from the spot and didn't hear. It's
very fortunate that they managed to alert the lifeguard, because in most cases
drowning is silent and discreet [1], unlike the movies. I wonder if either a
patrolling drone or a onshore hi-res camera could use ML to recognize the
signs of drowning and alert the lifeguard in case the person in distress is
unable to do so, as usually happens.

\---

[1] [https://www.popsci.com/identify-prevent-
drowning](https://www.popsci.com/identify-prevent-drowning)

~~~
tgb
The "drowning is silent and discreet" fact isn't very relevant here - no one
was drowning, they were just at risk of tiring out and starting to drown in
the near future. A flotation device delivered by drone would have to get quite
lucky to help someone who was already drowning, while here the woman involved
helps position the flotation device.

~~~
YeGoblynQueenne
The woman puts on the lifejacket herself, but she's being held afloat by the
man next to her. She doesn't seem able to kep herself afloat- the waves keep
washing over her and she can hardly keep her head above them even with the
lifejacket on.

~~~
sandworm101
No. Look closely. This is very shallow water. Some people are standing between
waves. Im not sure we have the full story. She seems simply exhausted or
hypothermic. A jetski also arrives almost immediately.

The first thing i noticed about her was that she was far to high in the water
to be floating. He chest is visible above the surface. Nobody, even with help,
can maintain that for more than a couple seconds. She is standing.

(Small waves breaking + murky water also means shallow.)

~~~
YeGoblynQueenne
There's a man holding her up, that's why she's high on the water.

------
rasz
Remember undertow -> swim parallel to the beach. If you watch the video people
~10 meters to the side were perfectly fine.

~~~
nradov
Based on recent research it appears that advice isn't always optimal. In some
undertow (rip) currents the best technique is to tread water and wait for the
circulating current to bring you back closer to shore.

[https://www.outsideonline.com/2089696/everything-you-know-
ab...](https://www.outsideonline.com/2089696/everything-you-know-about-
surviving-rip-currents-wrong)

~~~
BrandoElFollito
This is what I was told as a teenager 30 years ago on vacation in SW of France
(Moliets-Plage). They told us to tread and wait either for the flow to bring
us back, or for them to get to us (in a helicopter, usually)

------
js2
Interesting. The main use case is getting a flotation device out to the person
quickly to bridge the time it takes for the lifeguard to arrive. A secondary
use case is shark monitoring, though given the rarity of shark attacks that
seems more questionable.

The oldest article I can find discussing using drones to assist lifeguards is
from June 2015:

[https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/06/25/drones...](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/06/25/drones-
may-help-lifeguards-beach-rescues/29295849/)

This all sounds pretty sane:

> _" In extreme conditions like red flag, big surf, high winds, where you
> normally have trouble getting out to someone, you would be able to use it,"
> said Dan George, the chief of Long Branch's beach patrol. George said drones
> could potentially be flown out at long range, a mile or two, to reach
> distressed stand-up paddle boarders, kite surfers or capsized boats. The
> cameras on drones could help locate submerged persons quicker, while
> microphones and speakers could enable lifeguards to talk to a person in the
> water if they were responsive. Some models can even deliver flotation
> devices. [...] George said drones could also be used to monitor the beach in
> the event of a shark sighting, like Seal Beach. [...] The price of the
> drones Long Branch looked at ranged from $1,300 to $7,000._

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pvaldes
Yup, travelling by air is the right way to do it if the weather allows it.
Much faster than swimming all the way towards your objective. With strong
winds or high wages would not be the first choice and motorboats win in the
race probably.

Now they should complete the drone providing it with a heated floater or a
similar system to warm the people in danger of hypotermia.

~~~
Roritharr
I wonder if it wouldn't make sense to build a drone strong enough to carry a
lifeguard the 200-300m effective range required and simply let him drop there
and return. That would probably be the fastest and safest method. Although I
wouldn't want one crashing on me.

~~~
mattio
Well, if the person's life was hanging by a thread, you would want to get the
person out of the water asap, right? A 200-300m swim back while pulling
someone will take a while. If the drone is there already why not let the
lifeguard hook the person to the drone and let it fly back.

~~~
dingaling
Getting the casualty out ASAP isn't always the priority, particularly if they
have a potential spinal injury. Getting them into a controlled and survivable
position is paramount.

Usually only if they are unresponsive and not breathing are they extracted
immediately regardless of risk or further injury.

Source: NPLQ training

~~~
lucb1e
But how often do you break your spine in the middle of the ocean? Maybe
there's rocky areas where what you're saying makes sense, but as far as I know
the danger is exhaustion and consequently drowning, or perhaps hypothermia.

------
timwaagh
The amount of things we can do with drones seem to be quite extensive. I
wonder if we could ever put pressure on the government to bring down trade
barriers using by using near impossible to catch drones to smuggle goods in
and out.

~~~
ummonk
The cartels are already getting in on it to get around those pesky trade
barriers on dangerously addictive drugs.

------
personlurking
"The web page you were trying to visit is not accessible in your country."

Here's another article on it:

"This Wednesday, a group of seven swimmers located about 70 m (230 ft) from
the beach at Spain's port of Sagunto found themselves caught in an undertow
and being swept out to sea. After they signalled one of the lifeguards, an
onsite Auxdron Lifeguard Drone was flown out to perform a rescue.

Made by Spanish startup GeneralDrones, the Auxdron features eight props/motors
located on the ends of four arms, along with a watertight carbon fiber body
and a maximum flight time of 34 minutes – that goes down to 26 minutes when
it's carrying a payload of two inflatable life jackets.

In Wednesday's incident, shore-located operator Diego Torres remotely piloted
the drone out to the swimmers. He was guided by radio communications with the
lifeguard, along with a real-time video feed from the aircraft's gimbal-
stabilized onboard camera.

Once the drone reached the swimmers, its video revealed that one woman in
particular was really struggling with the current, so Torres dropped and
guided one of the drone's tethered life jackets over to her. The jacket
automatically inflated upon contact with the water, and was able to be
disconnected from its tether once she had gotten hold of it.

Lifeguards on Jet Skis subsequently arrived to retrieve the woman and bring
her to shore, with the Auxdron continuing to hover above the remaining
swimmers, monitoring them and marking their location until they could also be
picked up."

[https://newatlas.com/drone-rescues-
swimmer/55934/](https://newatlas.com/drone-rescues-swimmer/55934/)

or just a 2 minute, no sound video of one of the rescues:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEn_rDpMFq8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEn_rDpMFq8)

~~~
aunty_helen
Ironically I can't watch this in Spain :/ however if I block the meredith
scripts using uMatrix everything works fine.

~~~
personlurking
I'm in Portugal and it works. Perhaps there's another video of it on Youtube
Spain.

------
Markoff
saving them from what? you can see in the end of video clearly there are
people standing on solid bottom with shallow water not reaching even their
waist without any need to swim

this is very very poor viral video, next time at least make actors pretend to
swim in whole video and shoot in in 1.5m deep water instead of this 50cm
beach, though thorough video you can already see many people actually just
standing there instead of swimming

~~~
YeGoblynQueenne
[edit: removed a lot of unnecessary information]

You can easily drown in ankle-deep water. I almost did, last year, in a
situation very similar to the one in the video and I've been swimming since I
was a toddler and had my fins on that day.

Deceptively familiar situations where you think the sea looks safe when it's
not, are the most dangerous, because you end up doing the totally wrong thing
and exhausting yourself fighting the waves or putting yourself in mortal
danger without realising it- until it's too late.

And just because people are laughing and playing in the sea a few meters away
doesn't mean you're safe, either. People drown all the time in crowded
swimming pools with dozens of people around them who are not, themselves,
drowning.

Also, when there's a wave, the water is shallow for a while and then it's
suddendly deep. And if the waves are a couple of meters high, it can be too
deep. If you can't float at that point, you're toast.

~~~
ricardobeat
Seems like you removed the description of your incident? I was curious to hear
it - happy to know you made it out.

~~~
YeGoblynQueenne
Cheers. I felt it was a bit too personal and unnecessary for what I wanted to
say. But thanks :)

------
hkai
Sounds great, although scary. Under the pretext of saving lives, governments
may deploy drones to track and arrest undesirable people.

I imagine videos like this will encourage broad support for drone
surveillance.

~~~
cm2187
You mean illegal immigrants? I’d be surprised if DHS doesn’t already do this
on the border with Maxico.

In a similar spirit there was a recent Ted talk [1] where the guy was
enthusiastic about doing image recognition on a global scale from satellite
images. He argued it would allow things like tracking every ship in the world.

This surveillance world is coming gradually from every direction, and like a
frog, we will wake up in a water which temperature we may not like.

[1]
[https://www.ted.com/talks/will_marshall_the_mission_to_creat...](https://www.ted.com/talks/will_marshall_the_mission_to_create_a_searchable_database_of_earth_s_surface)

~~~
nradov
Almost every civilian ship in the world is already tracked using AIS.
Satellite surveillance helps to catch those few vessels who turn off their AIS
transmitters to engage in criminal activity (piracy, illegal fishing,
smuggling, violating trade sanctions).

~~~
cm2187
I am sure they are very nasty and that law abiding citizens have nothing to
fear from an orwelian surveillance!

~~~
nradov
I'm not sure what you're trying to imply. It's critically important to know
where large vessels are at all times for safety and collision avoidance if
nothing else. This isn't Orwellian by any means.

