A behind-the-scenes look at the Denver-area drone search that found a missing woman with Alzheimer's

Alone, cold and walking along a highway -- that's where a Commerce City police drone spotted a 76-year-old woman with Alzheimer's disease after she wandered away from her home last week. Her husband had called 911 in a panic, telling dispatchers she was confused, vulnerable and somewhere out in the night without a coat.

Inside the Commerce City Police Department, that call quickly reached the Real Time Crime Center. It's a small room lined with glowing monitors where a team tracks live camera feeds, incoming 911 information and real time data across the city. It's also where the department's first responder drones are launched from rooftop stations positioned around Commerce City.

"We can set a destination either by a pin or entering it through Google Maps," Sgt. Rick Irwin explained. "The drone will launch automatically, it'll fly automatically until we want to take over manually."

 Irwin was working in the crime center when the missing person alert came in.

"They said this basic shopping center area with King Soopers right there is where she was last seen ... so that's when I switched over to thermal," Irwin told CBS News Colorado's Kelly Werthmann as he replayed the recorded drone footage.

Within seconds of scanning the area, something stood out.

"I saw a heat signature in a spot where I know there shouldn't be a heat signature," he said.

As he zoomed in on the bright shape moving through the frame, Irwin recognized the woman's posture from the description officers had been given. The drone's video showed her walking through the middle of the Highway 85 and Highway 2 interchange -- a cold, dark construction zone with fast-moving traffic.

Irwin said as soon as he saw the woman, he radioed a patrol officer closing in from the ground.

"As soon as I saw patrol pulling up to talk to her, it was like that sense of accomplishment," Irwin said.

Body camera video released by police shows the officer approaching the woman and helping her to safety before paramedics evaluated her and brought her back home. Deputy Chief Mike Smathers says the case shows exactly why the department invested in first responder drones.

"No matter how much you're trying, time is ticking, and time is your enemy with an endangered missing person," he said. "[A drone] doesn't replace the human element. It never will, but it gets us on scene quicker and gives us a viewpoint that you just can't replicate on the ground."

The program, launched last year, positions drones across the city so they can reach locations far faster than officers in patrol cars. Irwin says that speed can make all the difference when someone is lost, injured or unable to call for help.

"It's a sense of accomplishment ... especially in today's society, where people think we're doing all these bad things with technology," he said. "Being able to do something like this to prove like, no, we're literally helping you out, like anybody out with whatever we can."

Commerce City Police say the drones have also helped locate stolen vehicles and wanted suspects. Smathers believes the integrated program is only beginning to show its potential.

"The benefits are tremendous," he said. "And I believe it's the future of policing."