Arizona police use aerial and real-time technology to rescue missing woman

PEORIA, Ariz. (NBC, KYMA) - The Peoria Police Department (PPD) used aerial and real-time technology to help with the search and rescue of a missing woman in Peoria, Arizona Friday.

Video released by PPD it shows the moment when the department's aviation unit directed officers to the location of an endangered woman suffering from dementia.

The rescue came after the Glendale Police Department alerted PPD that the missing woman was driving somewhere in North Peoria.

"Our technology with the RTCC, they were able to kind of pinpoint where she was last seen, which somewhere in North Peoria. They could also tell that she never came out of that location," said Sgt. Shelly Montez with PPD.

It was then that officers realized she drove well off the nearest roadway.

"She went down an embankment that was 15-feet down, yes, and then actually there was a retaining wall that went eight-feet down. So she fell into that eight-foot embankment," Sgt. Montez shared.

Once officers got to the scene and pulled her out of the car, they say she was extremely disoriented.

"She believed it was 1976, so she had no idea where she was at," Montez detailed.

Montez says the woman's family had placed air tags in her vehicle, which helped law enforcement narrow down her location, but the technology played a significant role in her safe recovery.

"They're at every intersection, and they, what the investigators do is they log in and they can see they they put a hit on the plate so they can locate where this plate was last seen," Montez explained. "It's invaluable. I mean, without the RTCC first, we wouldn't have been able to pinpoint where she was, and then, without our asset of the air unit, she would have not been found."