LAS VEGAS (FOX5) — A Las Vegas animal search and rescue group is asking for public help after their thermal imaging drone was destroyed during a nighttime search for an injured dog.
Paws Patrol LV said volunteers responded to an emergency call on the east side of the valley near Hollywood Boulevard and Desert Inn Road. When they arrived, the dog — which had been struck by a vehicle — ran into a nearby wash.
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Drone brought in after foot search failed
“We were able to determine the dog had been hit by a vehicle off to the side of the road,” volunteer Kelly Winder said.
Volunteers spotted the dog limping before it disappeared into thick brush. Foot searches with flashlights were unsuccessful due to dense vegetation, so the group deployed their thermal imaging drone, which is capable of detecting an animal’s heat signature.
“With the drone, you can actually see where the dog is going, where it’s staying, where it’s laying,” said volunteer Tii Riga.
Unhoused individuals destroyed the drone
Riga said people living in the wash believed they were being surveilled and brought the drone down. Paws Patrol LV said the group knocked the drone out of the sky, smashed it, and threw it into the water.
“I heard voices, and I know people live like sometimes in these washes in the bushes. And all of a sudden I didn’t see the drone anymore,” Riga said. “I heard like a bunch of cursing and yelling and you hear like plastic smashing.”
Riga said she waded into knee-deep water to retrieve the device.
“It just flopped over, you know, like all the arms are broken, the camera’s ripped off, the battery is gone,” she said.
Search for injured dog continues
The drone had previously been used to locate lost, abandoned, and injured animals across Las Vegas and in California, finding dogs in washes, in the desert, and in areas not visible to the human eye.
Volunteers have returned to the wash to search for the injured dog but have not located it.
“We’ve been coming out here day and night and beating the brush, so to speak,” Winder said.
“We desperately needed to find that dog. He was bleeding. He was hurt. And that destroyed our chance,” Riga contended.
Paws Patrol LV is now fundraising to repair or replace the drone. The group said the device has a retail value of approximately $7,000. The organization said other searches are currently underway and that the loss of the drone makes locating missing dogs significantly more difficult.
More information on Paws Patrol LV and how to support their fundraising efforts visit https://www.pawspatrollv.org/
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