A woman who broke her leg while going for a walk was left stranded in woodland before being found by rescuers eight hours later.
Firefighters managed to track down the woman stuck in the secluded spot, despite her phone dying, after she went missing while walking alone on Sunday evening.
Rescuers were forced to deploy two drones with infrared cameras to fly above the woman as she lay injured in woods near Faversham, Kent.
Police initially began the search, but were forced to call in specialist firefighters to help trace the stricken victim.
Fire crews had to trace a phone call she made earlier in the day, before running out of battery, to work out she may have been in the woods.
A technical rescue unit was brought in, including two drone pilots with state-of-the-art drones with infrared cameras that were used to search two areas of woodland at the same time.
The drones were launched at around 1am and the woman was located two hours later at around 3am, Kent Fire and Rescue Service said.
After hours of scouring woodland from above in the darkness, Kent Fire and Rescue drone pilot and firefighter, Ali Gilfillan, found the woman and the rest of the crew rushed to her aid.
They created a makeshift splint to support her broken leg and carried her on a stretcher around 330 yards (300 meters) through the woods to the road.
Paramedics from the South East Coast Ambulance Service then took her to hospital.
Firefighter Ali said after the dramatic rescue: “You can’t describe the feeling of finding a missing person, and in those situations it can be like looking for a needle in a haystack.
“But this is what we are trained for - our skills combined with modern technology, and effective, joined up working between blue light services, we really can achieve some amazing outcomes.
“We're so pleased to have found the lady, and we hope she has a speedy recovery.”
Jim Chaston, a technical rescue supervisor at KFRS, added: “The drones are fantastic pieces of kit that we use quite often these days - whether that’s helping to locate missing people, or flying over fires to get a better view and understanding of fire spread, search for hot spots, assess damage and structural stability, and provide evidence for fire investigation.
“Technology within the fire service has come such a long way, and we’ll continue to evolve and adapt to make sure we’ll always be able to help people when they need us most.”
