A kindergarten student at Sto-Rox Primary Center that wandered away during recess on Tuesday morning is back home and safe after an hours-long search.
The reality of the situation is these types of searches don’t always conclude with a happy ending.
5-year-old Jedadiah Jackson was found thanks to a large group of first responders and the keen eye of a drone operator.
Justin Melanson of Avion Industries, who operated the drone that found Jedadiah, tells KDKA Radio that he’d done hundreds of searches for missing people over the years, “and most of them don’t end this well.”
Melanson says he was contacted by officials and was approved to fly.
He adds they were able to find the boy using a thermal drone.
“A thermal drone can not see in a sunny environment, everything is hot everything is the same color so I went pretty far away and I was looking into the shadows where the drone can see the difference in temperature,” said Melanson. “He was a very small speck, but I saw something there so I zoomed in .
. . and there he was.”
Listen above as Melanson tells the full story.
Kennedy Township IVFC says several agencies all helped in the search:
Kennedy Township Police Department
Kennedy Twp Fire Dept
Robinson Twp. VFC #1 - Station 244
Neville Island VFD
Moon Township VFD
Pittsburgh Fire Boat
Pittsburgh EMS Boat
Valley EMS
Northwest EMS
Pittsburgh Police Dept.
Allegheny County Police
Allegheny County Sherriffs
Allegheny Mountain Rescue
TRT Rescue
PA State Police
Robinson Township Police Department
Ohio Township Police
Stowe Township Police
South Fayette Police