More on OFFICER.com
N.Y. Police Officer's Bodycam Captures Rescue of Boy in Frigid River Lock
- A Baldwinsville police officer who responded to a 9-1-1 call about a 7-year-old boy who fell into a lock on the Seneca River helped firefighters and a bystander pull the young boy to safety.
By Teri Figueroa
Source The San Diego Union-Tribune
A search and rescue team extricated a missing woman from a storm drain near the San Diego-Poway border Monday after a hunt for her led police detectives to the out-of-the-way spot, fire officials said.
The 59-year-old was taken to a hospital in serious condition, said San Diego homicide Lt. Jonathan Dungan, who also oversees missing persons cases.
The woman was last seen around midnight on March 25 on Union Street just north of Broadway in downtown San Diego, according to a missing person post police issued last week. Her family reported her missing last Thursday, more than a week after she’d vanished.
Dungan said the search for her took detectives to an area on Beeler Canyon Road, south of Scripps Poway Parkway. Police did not say why they headed to the area, which includes a hiking and biking trail and is more than 20 miles northeast of downtown.
“While in the area, they heard a woman’s voice coming from the area of a maintenance hole cover,” Dungan said.
Poway Deputy Fire Chief Chuy Ramirez said Poway Fire Department got a call from San Diego police shortly before noon seeking their assistance.
Ramirez said the detectives had found belongings near the storm drain entrance and heard what sounded like a woman moaning from inside the storm drain.
Ramirez said detectives ventured about 100 feet into the drain but could not find the woman. San Diego Fire-Rescue’s Urban Search and Rescue team was called to search the storm drain.
San Diego Fire-Rescue Battalion Chief Erik Windsor said the rescue crew removed a nearby manhole cover, inserted a powerful listening device and heard moaning. “With that confirmation of life, we inserted our rescuers into the storm drain system through one of the manhole covers,” he said.
But tight spots like storm drains can be fraught with danger, from dangerous gases to wild animals. “We don’t take putting people, rescuers into confined spaces lightly at all,” he said.
Crew members suited up and headed into the pipes — one headed right, the other headed left. The diameter of the pipes was tight enough they had to army crawl.
Each went as far as they could but could not find her, Windsor said. Officials asked that small robots with cameras be brought to the scene to look inside the pipes. As those assets were on the way, rescuers started pulling open the manhole covers that dot Beeler Canyon Road in hopes of finding the woman.
After lifting up the cover of a manhole tucked near brush, they had luck — they spotted the missing woman’s legs, Windsor said. A rescuer was lowered roughly 10 feet into the hole to strap her into a harness. Windsor said she was hoisted out within roughly 10 minutes and placed into a waiting ambulance.
Windsor said officials believe the woman had entered the storm drain system through a nearby outflow opening, the site where her belongings had been found.
It’s not clear how long she was in the storm drain. Officials said no foul play is suspected.
Dungan said no additional details will be released at this time out of respect for the woman and her family.
_______________
©2025 The San Diego Union-Tribune.
Visit sandiegouniontribune.com.
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
