During any search and rescue mission, experts say you often wish you had an extra set of hands, sometimes even an extra set of eyes – and now Jackson County does, thanks to a drone.

“Often times, you have open country where you can get a great visual with a camera on the drone of your search area,” said Sgt. Shawn Richards, Jackson County Search and Rescue.

Drones can do much more than provide aerial views as search and rescue’s learned over the years. It can drop off items to victims like radios or water bottles, it can also go where some rescuers can’t.

“We’ve had it to where we’re using cameras in a river – underwater cameras,” he said.

The drone, alone, isn’t just the technology working to help search crews. Members, themselves are working towards inventing attachments and utilizing certain features of the drone.

“He has a whistle that he puts on the drone that it’s a really loud screeching type noise, like a fire alarm. To where if somebody was down in the canopy or wherever, and hopefully they would hear that to come out and look up,” he said.

And search and rescue hopes to continue to add other capabilities as well.

“It’s endless what we’re going to be able to do to utilize them into the search and rescue field,” he said.

However, fire district leaders contend that they've taken their books from red to black and those responsible for monetary issues in the first place are no longer employed.

"This is nothing about the great services of the fine men and women who make up the full-time [firefighters], volunteers and EMTs," Platt said of the move to bring the service under the control of local government following a petition drive among residents. "It's about pubic safety."

The fire district, which operates annually under a voter-approved budget of about $7.5 million, consists of about 40 paid and volunteer staffers and five commissioners. According to Platt, "fiscal mismanagement" was brought to the attention of town council by firefighters in February 2016.

The supposed shortcomings included a drain on the district's surplus from about $2 million down to $100,000, a downgraded bond rating and overtime pay exceeding "hundreds of times" over what was allotted, Platt said. He noted that one professional review of the district deemed it "one of the most poorly-run" fire departments the author had ever encountered.

Platt said the fire department will become a line item in Voorhees' municipal budget, much like a police department is, once the measure approved by the state local finance board under the Department of Community Affairs. Spending and local taxation will be determined during the budgeting process, he added.

He added: "During the incident the vehicle was in collision with a pedestrian who has sadly died from their injuries.

"Their next of kin has been made aware and family liaison officers will be providing full support.A police spokesman said the engine was responding to an emergency call while travelling along the Old North Road, Royston, Herts, at 8.44 pm when for reasons unknown it lost control and over-turned.

"There were four occupants in the fire engine at the time of the incident and all sustained minor injuries."

An ambulance spokesman confirmed one person was pronounced dead at the scene, and a second pedestrian was taken to hospital with injuries on Wednesday night.

Andrew Fowler, from Barrington, a village in Cambridgeshire, told Cambridge News: “There’s a fire engine turned over. It’s a whole mass of blue flashing lights, including ambulance services and another fire engine.

"That is one hell of a piece of equipment to go over."