NEED TO KNOW
- A recently adopted canine named Benji escaped from a Philadelphia home on Jan. 24 as a winter storm started sweeping through the city
- Rick Rotondo Photography and Lost Pet Thermal Drone Search worked to locate Benji
- The drone found Benji in an abandoned lot about half a mile from the family’s home
After disappearing for 48 hours during a brutal winter storm, a dog named Benji has been reunited with his family thanks to a thermal drone.
Ece Bal and Justin Cerone, the one-and-a-half-year-old Bernedoodle’s owners, recounted the rescue to the city’s local ABC affiliate.
“It’s just unreal,” Cerone said.
The recently adopted canine escaped from the couple’s home on the night of Saturday, Jan. 24, as the storm was starting. Fortunately, their neighbors banded together to find the missing pooch.
“It was incredible to see how everyone in the neighborhood mobilized,” Cerone said.
Someone from a local rescue contacted Rick Rotondo Photography and Lost Pet Thermal Drone Search to assist with the frantic search.
“I believe it was the night before the storm was when I first heard about him,” drone operator Rick Rotondo told ABC.
He noted that he focused his efforts on quieter areas, where the frightened dog might be.
“He is scared and likely hiding to stay warm, possibly under cars, in lots, or other sheltered areas,” read a post on Rotondo’s Facebook page about Benji’s whereabouts on Jan. 25.
The drone successfully located Benji shortly after in an abandoned lot about half a mile from the family’s home.
Rotondo called Benji’s rescue “nothing short of incredible” in a follow-up Facebook post.
“His family moved fast, stayed calm, and did everything right once we had eyes on him,” he wrote. “The video from this search is easily one of the most intense rescues we’ve ever been part of. At one point, Benji jumped roughly 15 feet off a wall and took off at full speed. Heart-stopping doesn’t even begin to describe it.”
Bal reflected on how both the couple’s neighbors and strangers united to help in an interview with CBS News.
“We had people looking for him where we were going up to them to give flyers, and they were telling us about him, not knowing we’re his owners,” she recalled. “So that’s just to give an example of how many people were involved and how far it reached.”
Bal and Cerone added that they plan to embed a GPS tracker in Benji’s collar.
Earlier this month, a drone helped find another canine: a rescue dog named Abbie who escaped on her way to a new home.
Final Victory Animal Rescue told WABC that the golden retriever mix was traveling from a South Carolina shelter to New England when she got loose at a rest stop off the New Jersey Turnpike. Thankfully, Abbie was wearing an AirTag.
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In a Facebook post on Jan. 4, Final Victory announced that Abbie had been located by the USAR Drone Team, a veteran-led nonprofit search-and-rescue organization, using thermal imaging.
“Our reward is seeing the smiles on everybody’s face, especially the owners of their pets. I mean, we consider them family members,” Drone Team member Michael Parziale, who worked on Abbie’s rescue, told CBS News.
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