DJI Drones Save American Lives: Here’s The Proof Politicians Are Ignoring Before December 23

We have been reporting on the DJI ban for over a year, but today we are publishing something different: a comprehensive, documented record of American lives saved by the very drones that will be banned in nine days. DroneXL reader Chad Roylance compiled this list from verified news reports, first responder testimonies, and official rescue records, and the evidence is overwhelming.

The December 23, 2025 deadline set by Section 1709 of the FY25 NDAA will automatically place DJI on the FCC’s Covered List unless a federal agency completes a security audit. No agency has begun that review despite DJI’s formal requests in March, June, and December 2025. The result is a ban by bureaucratic default, not by evidence of wrongdoing.

What follows are real rescues, real people, and real drones that will no longer be available to first responders after next week.

The Numbers That Matter

This Week: Utah Quicksand Rescue

On December 7, 2025, just days ago, 33-year-old Austin Dirks became trapped up to his thigh in quicksand while on a 20-mile (32 km) backpacking trip through Arches National Park in Utah. Temperatures hovered around 21 degrees Fahrenheit (-6 degrees Celsius) in the canyon, where no sunlight could reach him.

Grand County Search and Rescue deployed a drone that provided incident commander John Marshall with a bird’s-eye view of the situation within minutes. “I was just rolling out of bed,” Marshall told reporters. “I’m scratching my head, going, ‘Did I hear that right? Did they say quicksand?'”

Through the drone camera, rescuers watched a park ranger toss Dirks a shovel, but the quicksand flowed back as fast as he could dig. The aerial perspective allowed teams to position ladders and traction boards precisely, freeing Dirks after he had spent hours in freezing conditions. He hiked out under his own power.

This rescue was reported by NBC News, CBS News, CNN, and ABC News. The mission marked Grand County SAR’s 142nd rescue of 2025.

Last Week: Oklahoma Elderly Man Found After 12 Hours

On November 30, 2025, a 90-year-old Atoka County man went missing in freezing temperatures. Ground crews, horses, and even the National Guard searched the area for hours without success.

Wagoner County Emergency Management deployed volunteer pilot Eric Lane with a DJI Matrice 30. Within 15 minutes of launch, the drone’s thermal camera detected a heat signature in dense woods. Lane spotted the man curled up inside his coat with his dog Daisy zipped against his chest for warmth.

“Whenever I located the individual, I was able to fly over him, and he was curled up in his jacket with his head and everything tucked,” Lane told News On 6.

Lane used the drone’s built-in speaker to tell the man that help was on the way, providing reassurance while rescuers navigated the rough terrain. The man survived after nearly 12 hours in freezing conditions.

Wagoner County Emergency Management Director Tyler Puckett told reporters that drones are used “almost daily” for suspects, missing juveniles, grass fires, and structure fires. The Matrice 30 that saved this man’s life will no longer be available for purchase after December 23.

Weber County, Utah: 25 to 30 Lives Saved

Weber County Search and Rescue in northern Utah has become one of the most documented drone rescue programs in America. Drone team coordinator Kyle Nordfors estimates his team has been “instrumental in saving” 25 to 30 lives using DJI enterprise drones.

In one early deployment, Weber County received a beta unit of the DJI Matrice 30T before its official release. A snowboarder had become stranded in North Fork mountain valley, lost in the dark with his skin icing up. Within 10 minutes of launch, the thermal camera found him.

“And I’ll tell you what, it was absolutely instrumental in saving the life of one of our residents,” Nordfors said in an interview with Billy Kyle published on DroneXL. “We unfolded it. Launched it, put it up on the scene, and within 10 minutes, with the use of the thermal camera and also the zoom camera, we were able to find his tracks really quickly and get eyes on him.”

The team then used the drone to map the safest descent route for ground rescuers, cutting mission time in half. Weber County uses DJI Matrice 300 RTK and Matrice 30T drones for everything from cliff rescues to avalanche searches to finding lost hikers in 4,000-foot (1,219 m) terrain.

Florida’s $200 Million Disaster

We do not have to speculate about what happens when DJI drones are banned. Florida already conducted this experiment, and the results are devastating.

When Florida banned Chinese drones for state agencies in April 2023, Senator Tom Wright estimated agencies possessed approximately $200 million worth of DJI equipment. The state allocated just $25 million in replacement funding, representing only 12.5% of the confiscated equipment’s value.

Orlando Police Sergeant David Cruz testified before the Florida Senate Committee in March 2023:

“With DJI in five years of DJI, we saw no losses, no issues, no failures. In one and a half years, approximately between two different manufacturers, we had a total of five losses. In one year and a half, we had five failures of the manufacturers on the list. DJI, none. That’s going to put us in danger, our officers in danger, and the public in danger, when these drones continue to fall out of the sky.”

Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office documented a Skydio battery that caught fire through spontaneous thermal combustion while sitting on a deputy’s vehicle floorboard. A leaked Department of Interior memo obtained by the Financial Times revealed that Blue sUAS drones cost “8 to 14 times more” than DJI equivalents while reducing sensor capacity by 95% and meeting only 20% of civilian mission requirements.

The security analysis that supposedly justified Florida’s $200 million equipment seizure was never published. Dr. Sriram Chellappan, Director of Research at Florida’s Center for Cybersecurity, told WESH 2 News in November 2023 that his team would spend “the next eight months” analyzing confiscated Chinese drones. That analysis has never been released.

Chad Roylance’s Complete Rescue List

DroneXL reader Chad Roylance compiled additional documented rescues from news reports across America:

• North Carolina Missing Child: Deputies used a DJI Mavic 2 Enterprise Advanced with thermal camera to locate a missing child who wandered from home after dark, finding the child’s heat signature in wooded area within minutes.
• Texas Flood Rescue: During severe flooding, first responders deployed DJI Matrice-series drones to locate stranded residents trapped by rising water, replacing the need for helicopter flyovers.
• Michigan Snowstorm: A sheriff’s department used a DJI Mavic 2 Enterprise Advanced with thermal imaging to locate an elderly woman missing during a winter snowstorm, finding her heat signature in a snow-covered field.
• California Steep Terrain: Search teams used a DJI Matrice 300 RTK to locate a hiker who had fallen off-trail below a cliff band, enabling a planned rope-based extraction.
• Florida Waterways: Marine units deployed a DJI Mavic 3 Thermal to locate a missing boater after sunset, detecting the individual floating in water nearly invisible to the naked eye.
• North Carolina Alzheimer’s Patient: A police department deployed a DJI Matrice 300 RTK with thermal payload to locate an elderly man with Alzheimer’s who had wandered from home, finding him lying in tall grass invisible to ground searchers.
• Arizona Desert: Search teams used a DJI Mavic 3 Thermal to locate a lost hiker suffering from dehydration in extreme heat.
• Colorado Avalanche: SAR teams used DJI Enterprise drones with thermal imaging to scan avalanche debris fields, narrowing search zones and reducing time spent exposing rescuers to unstable snow.

The Cost Comparison Reality

Roylance broke down the economics that make DJI drones essential for volunteer SAR teams and rural departments:

A DJI Enterprise thermal drone costs approximately $5,000 to $15,000 as a one-time purchase, is reusable, deployable in minutes, and has minimal operating costs. A single drone can replace dozens of man-hours per mission.

Compare that to helicopter deployment at $1,500 to $5,000 per flight hour, requiring crew, fuel, maintenance, weather restrictions, high risk to aircrew, and often unavailable to small counties or volunteers.

A single DJI thermal drone can pay for itself in one or two rescues by reducing helicopter use, shortening search times, lowering responder risk, saving taxpayer dollars, and increasing survival rates.

DroneXL’s Take

I have been covering this story for over a year, and Chad Roylance’s compilation crystallizes what we have been documenting all along: the DJI ban is not a security policy. It is a regulatory trap that will cost American lives.

Congress mandated a security audit but never assigned which agency should conduct it. DJI has begged for that audit since March 2025. No agency has stepped forward. The result is a ban by default, not by evidence.

As we reported last week, Arizona Fire Chief Luis Martinez warned: “Lives are going to be lost because this air capability is going to be taken away.” This is not hyperbole. This is a firefighter who uses drones to drop life jackets to flood victims telling Congress what will happen when his batteries die and he cannot replace them.

Florida’s experience proves what happens when politicians ban DJI without viable alternatives. We documented the $200 million disaster: grounded fleets, inadequate funding, inferior replacements that catch fire and fall from the sky. Senator Tom Wright, who originally sponsored legislation to expand drone use for first responders, became the ban’s most vocal opponent: “I hope to hell we don’t have anyone lose a life to this silly rule.”

The math is simple. If we force agencies to pay 3 to 14 times more for drones that fail more frequently, we will have fewer drones in the air. Fewer drones means longer search times. Longer search times mean more people die of exposure, hypothermia, and dehydration before rescuers arrive.

Chad Roylance said it best: “The person lost in the cold, the kid who wandered off, the hiker off-trail, the flood victim on a rooftop… doesn’t care about politics. They care about the sound of rescuers arriving.”

What do you think about the DJI ban’s impact on search and rescue? Should first responders be forced to use more expensive, less reliable equipment without any security evidence to justify it? Share your thoughts in the comments below.