Dramatic footage shows the moment a woman with a broken leg and no phone battery was found in woodland – more than eight hours after she went missing.

Fire crews deployed specialist drone technology to aid in the search near Faversham after being called to assist by police shortly after midnight on Sunday

Officers believed that the woman – who had been out on a walk – may have been in the woodland after tracing a phone call she had made earlier in the day, before running out of battery.

A technical rescue unit was brought in, including two drone pilots with state-of-the-art drones with infrared cameras that were used to search two areas of woodland near Colonel’s Lane.

After about two hours of scouring woodland from above in the darkness, drone pilot and firefighter Ali Gilfillan located the woman and the rest of crew rushed to her aid.

They acted fast to assess her condition, creating a makeshift splint to support her broken leg and carrying her on a stretcher about 300 metres through woodland to the road.

She was then handed into the care of paramedics.

Mr Gilfillan said: “You can’t describe the feeling of finding a missing person, and in those situations it can be like looking for a needle in a haystack.

“But this is what we are trained for – our skills combined with modern technology, and effective joined up working between blue light services, we really can achieve some amazing outcomes.

“We're so pleased to have found the lady, and we hope she has a speedy recovery.”

Kent Fire and Rescue Service technical rescue supervisor Jim Chaston said: “The drones are fantastic pieces of kit that we use quite often these days - whether that’s helping to locate missing people, or flying over fires to get a better view and understanding of fire spread, search for hot spots, assess damage and structural stability, and provide evidence for fire investigation.

“Technology within the fire service has come such a long way, and we’ll continue evolve and adapt to make sure we’ll always be able to help people when they need us most.”