JAMES CITY — The James City County Police Department is looking to expand its drone program to allow the flying devices to respond to calls ahead of officers and deliver medical devices when needed.
The department has been using drones in the field since 2021, but the drones have to be operated within eyesight of the pilot. Now, with a four-year, $500,000 grant from Duke University and by working with Virginia Commonwealth University, the department is hoping to develop a drone first responder program.
That means that in the near future, drones may be able to be first on the scene, reporting important situational awareness information to officers before they can arrive — and maybe even helping to save lives.
And James City County’s program could act as a blueprint for other areas setting up similar programs.
The grant looks to explore the feasibility of delivering AEDs — automated external defibrillators — via drone in cardiac arrest situations, with a focus on rural communities. By getting an AED to a patient quickly and delivering simple instructions that a family member or bystander could follow, it could mean faster treatment when every second counts.
“We’ve never been able to move the needle for cardiac arrest in private settings, and this technology could meet that need,” Monique Anderson Starks, a cardiologist and associate professor of medicine at Duke University, told the Virginia Mercury.
The funds originate from the American Heart Association, and the larger purpose of the grant is to determine whether areas like James City can accommodate a drone first responder program that delivers AEDs in cardiac arrest situations. A grant is also funding a pilot study in Forsyth County, North Carolina. Elsewhere in the country, other agencies are looking at drones to deliver help for drug overdoses and other medical emergencies.
The James City County Police Department currently has seven drones and 10 drone pilots. “We use them for all number of things — search and rescue, tactical operations,” said Sgt. Tiara Suggs, who leads drone operations for the department.
Though the county can only augment response with drones and can’t send them out as first responders yet, drones have still been helpful in various operations, Suggs said.
“A lot of what we were doing was search and rescue of individuals. We also had a lot of applications for tactical operations, SWAT operations, overwatch for kind of situational awareness type situations,” she said. Drones are also helpful for getting a bird’s-eye view of crime scenes.
Because drones are aircraft, restrictions on operations do apply. Current uses allowed for county police mainly augment and improve capabilities when officers are already on the scene. For example, the thermal capabilities of drones are helpful for search and rescue.
“It’s easier for the drone to pick up that heat signature than it is for me to pick up just someone laying in the woods, so you’re able to put the drone in the air, discover where that person is,” Suggs said.
To establish a drone first responder program, the department will need to get a waiver from the Federal Aviation Administration so officers can clear airspace ahead of remote flights to areas where officers haven’t yet arrived. A second waiver would be needed to deliver something like an AED.
Suggs explained how a DFR program would work: “A call comes out, a drone responds to that call first — be it a shoplifting, a fight, a call for an armed subject. A remote pilot sitting inside a building somewhere will fly the drone over and provide that first view of the call. So, before officers even get there, the drone is there providing situational awareness, descriptions of people … and they’re able to kind of guide officers to where they need to be to put them in the safest positions.”
The grant from Duke, working in conjunction with VCU, will help the department get a DFR program set up by reimbursing the county for the costs of needed equipment and waivers. The program would need larger, stronger drones to deliver items, Suggs said.
The department is hoping to have the paperwork for the DFR program in place by the end of the year. Suggs is hopeful that DFR flights can begin in early 2025, with AED delivery added to operations by the end of the year.
“At the end of the day,” department spokesman Tayleb Brooks said, “this is about saving lives.”
Sam Schaffer, samuel.schaffer@virginiamedia.com
