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SALT LAKE CITY — Security camera footage shows a drone flying in downtown Salt Lake City at the same time and location that a woman claims a drone fell from the sky and cut her nose.
“Yeah, that’s me. You can see I’m holding my face,” Erin Rubens said while watching the video. “I was freaking out, hoping that my nose was still there.”
Cameras situated on the Salt Place Convention Center captured numerous instances of a drone flying through the sky around 3 p.m. on Friday, near 100 South and West Temple.
“I’m glad that we found it,” Rubens said about the video. “It just validates what I knew happened.”
Even though a row of trees blocks the view of where Rubens said the drone made impact, she’s glad the surveillance video confirms the existence of the drone.
“There was a drone,” Rubens said. “What is it doing there?”
In the video, the drone moves quickly through the air near the Marriott hotel and, at one point, zooms close to the street below. The timestamp of the video matches Rubens’ account of when a drone hit her after she left work early on Friday and walked to catch a FrontRunner train.
“I felt my face and I looked down and saw it was a drone and I was bleeding all over,” she told KSL on Monday.
Rubens said she didn’t pick up the drone because she wanted to quickly get to a restroom and clean the wound. When she returned, the drone had disappeared from the sidewalk.
A Salt Lake Police Department detective said they couldn’t investigate the case because there wasn’t enough evidence and because it doesn’t appear to be a criminal incident.
After reviewing still frames of the surveillance video, drone expert Jon McBride, with Rocky Mountain Unmanned Systems in Centerville, said the incident should serve as a warning to drone enthusiasts to only fly in safe areas.
“Flying something around in this area is just not a great idea,” he said. “Those purchasing drones should be aware of that they can cause injury.”
Related:
Drone reportedly hits woman on SLC street, leaves 'pretty deep gash,' she says
A woman hopes somebody saw who was flying a drone in downtown Salt Lake City that she claims hit and injured her on Friday afternoon as she walked near the Salt Palace Convention Center.McBride said the video also serves to validate Rubens’ claim that there was a drone in the area.
“The drones are relatively safe,” he said. “This kind of incident doesn’t show up very often.”
Rubens said she understands that accidents happen but would still like the drone operator to take responsibility for what happened.
“I’d like just to have my medical expenses paid for,” she said. “I want them to know, ‘Hey, you hurt somebody, you need to be careful.’”
