A San Diego woman who was last seen on 25 March was found in a storm drain on Monday, and succumbed to her injuries shortly after.
A Palomar medical center doctor pronounced Yafang Zhou, 59, dead at about 4.15pm Monday, just hours after first responders extracted her from the drain.
Firefighters discovered Zhou trapped 8-10ft below ground along a hiking trail about 20 miles (32km) outside San Diego after pinging her phone, the San Diego fire-rescue department battalion chief Erik Windsor told reporters, according to ABC News. Her family had reported her missing on 3 April after she was last seen outside her downtown home on 25 March.
Windsor added that after firefighters detected Zhou’s phone in the Beeler Canyon Road region, they removed maintenance hole covers “and just [kept] going until they could either hear her or see her”. They were eventually able to hear Zhou moaning from underground.
With Zhou in sight, first responders conducted a confined space rescue.
“Units entered into the sewage system into what we call a confined space. They went through all the processes to permit it to make a safe entry, and then firefighters were literally inside the sewage or storm drain, crawling on their stomachs to try and locate the victim,” Windsor told ABC News San Diego. Using “a system of ropes and pulleys”, he added, they “lowered personnel down into the storm drain”.
After a search that lasted about an hour-and-a-half, rescuers moved Zhou to the surface and into a waiting ambulance. Paramedics determined she was in serious condition and transported her to a local hospital where Windsor said she underwent “lifesaving measures”, according to NBC San Diego.
First responders have not yet shared additional details, citing privacy law and Zhou’s family’s desire for privacy, but Windsor said the case was “very unusual”.
“It is very possible from what I’m hearing that she’s been there for days,” he said. “What she was doing in there, what drove her in there, how she came to be in there, we are unclear, and again, I will let our partners from the police department address that if they know anything. But it is very unusual to have somebody in there.”
Windsor said no open maintenance hole covers had been discovered in the region, raising questions as to how Zhou became trapped.
“It is possible that she entered into the storm drain system from one of the outlets, which would naturally be open where water would flow out into the creek, or some other way,” he said.
