HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — You may just see drones as a way to get video from the sky...but have you ever thought about it's ability to deliver life-saving items?
UAH College of Nursing partnered with drone experts to performs a tornado disaster medical scenario.
Rosi Patton, a nursing student with UAH, shared they, "...did a simulation of a disaster scenario. In this case, it was a tornado. And so I played a nurse in that situation. And so we had a group of patients that we had come in and kind of triage and, you know, rank who needed to be seen first and then kind of get what they need done."
Matt Sloane, the CEO and Founder of Skyfire Consulting, a drone service company, said, "You can quickly, in those scenarios, run out of medical supplies. And so the idea is that in the future, we'd like to be able to use drones to deliver those types of supplies."
This medical scenario is meant to teach nursing students how to assess patients and practice utilizing drone technology.
"The drone lands and then you get up and there's a little box in the drone that you pull out and you open it up. In my case, there was some, well, fake blood in there," Patton said.
This time the blood was fake, but in real life situations, having quick access to medical supplies is life saving.
"It's great to be able to call 911 and the ambulance can get there quickly, but it's usually 5 to 7 minutes. If we can get a drone there in 1 to 2 minutes with the appropriate medical supplies, we might be able to save some lives pretty quickly," Sloane said.
Right now the Federal Aviation Administration has a "line of sight" rule for drones where they must be visual to the pilot.
Companies like Skyfire are hoping to take medical drones a few miles farther in the future, delivering supplies from nearby hospitals to emergency situations.
Dr. Azita Amiri, an associate professor, at the UAH College of Nursing, said, "the bottom line is to bring health equity using drone technology in our communities...but to be able to get there, we need to do some practices. We need to work on the policies and we need to locate our communities, disadvantaged communities, who do not have access, immediate access to health care."
RELATED: Drone symposium comes to Huntsville