LADY LAKE, Fla. – This week, Officer Robert Chausse from the Lady Lake Police Department played a crucial role in a search operation involving a missing person.

According to police reports, the incident unfolded when a man’s wife alerted authorities early Tuesday morning. Her husband, who suffers from dementia, had wandered off during the night while she was asleep on Monday.

Officer Chausse recounted that they arrived at the couple’s residence, located in the historic section of The Villages, at approximately 7 a.m. on Tuesday.

Upon their arrival, a drone was swiftly deployed, and remarkably, within just three minutes, the missing individual was located.

Footage from the police drone, aired on News 6 on Wednesday night, captured the moment when officers made contact with the elderly gentleman.

Video shows the man walking slowly to police on a nearby golf cart path.

He was seen covered in blood.

It’s believed he’d fallen while away from his home, about 700 feet in distance.

Chausse explains why a police drone was used in the search instead of using other police search options.

“When we responded to the house we were looking for this elderly man who had wandered away with limited mobility and instead of driving around the house hoping for luck we can find someone in the neighborhood we used the drone it’s more efficient we can get a birds eye view of a much a larger area as opposed to being stuck in a vehicle driving street by street. ”

Officer Chausse says the process to use the drone is pretty simple…with training, of course.

” The drone can be airborne within about two minutes, and then, it’s just a matter of establishing a well search pattern to look for someone,” says Chausse.

The drone equipment and training to learn how to use the device totals about $24,000, but Chausse says if it saves one life, it’s well worth the cost.

He says in his experience, he’s seen the drone be more than 80% successful when used as part of police investigations.