A new report shows drones are playing a leading role in saving lives across the globe.

The report prepared by leading drone manufacturer DJI says civilian drones have been used to save at least 59 people in 18 different incidents around the world since 2013.

DJI, a China-based company, said 38 of those people were saved within in the last 10 months thanks to rescue teams and civilians employing their unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) to aid people facing life-threatening emergencies.

Now, DJI says a drone is saving nearly one person's life a week on average.

For example in 2013 a drone was used in Canada to spot a man who was lost in a "snowy field," according to DJI.

And in June 2015, drones were used to drop life vests and ropes to two teens who were at risk of drowning. They've also been used to find a missing heart attack victim and look from above for flooding victims.

Earlier this year rescuers at Huntington Beach in the US employed a heat-sensing drone to find kayakers who went missing and were stranded at night.

According to DJI, there might be many more instances like those. The company notes that there are many unreported incidents and some reports on drones saving lives don't mention how many people were saved.

Saved by civilians or volunteers

"Of particular note is a devastating series of floods in early December, 2015 in India, where various media accounts claim dozens of families, and up to 200 individuals, were spotted and rescued by drones," DJI said in a statement. "We have excluded these lives from our overall total because no definitive count is available."

Perhaps one of the more notable DJI findings is who is actually saving lives with drones. The company found that one-third of the recorded incidents included people who were rescued by civilians, non-professionals, or volunteers.

In some of those cases, people were saved by bystanders who happened to have drones on the ready when an emergency was occurring.

While DJI cautioned that local authorities and emergency responders should be alerted to emergencies, it predicts that consumer drones could "continue" to deliver "a net benefit to public safety" as the technology becomes more popular.

Source: Fortune