Who would’ve thought that the military would start using remote controlled toys to make their lives safer? Last week a staff sergeant named Christopher Fessenden who was on duty in Afghanistan, was sent a remote controlled toy vehicle that had a camera mounted on it as a present from his brother. When he loaned it to a group of soldiers who used the toy to check the road ahead of them while they were on patrol, it managed to save their lives.

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While scouting the road ahead of them, the toy hit a trip wire that was connected to what was said to be 500lbs of explosives and set them off. The toy truck was destroyed in the process but fortunately the soldiers who were controlling the car from a Humvee were left unscathed. Since then, Christopher’s brother Ernie has helped organized a nonprofit group to raise money for sending more of these camera-mounted RC trucks to the soldiers in Afghanistan.

Toys saving lives, now that’s a story you don’t hear about every day. Check out the full report:

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