San Diego Fire-Rescue firefighters "working a confined-space rescue" in Linda Vista later found a body, officials said on Monday morning.
Dispatchers received a call that prompted the callout to Osler and Ulric streets shortly before 10:30 a.m.
More than two dozen members of SDFD were sent to the scene, out in a wooded area in a canyon. More than a half-dozen emergency vehicles were called out as part of the rescue.
A caller, who said he never saw the person in distress, told 911 dispatchers that someone told him to call about a person in a hole. Officials later said that someone who knew the victim directed them to a makeshift tunnel under the stump of a tree.
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The SDFD spokeswoman initially said a person was trapped inside a tunnel on the side of a mid-slope hill near a vacant lot. Sadly, at about 11:30, word came that the firefighters had found a body, and the San Diego police took over and began an investigation.
“There was no possibility of falling, this was crawling in – he went in there on his own,” said SDFD battalion chief David Picone.
Rescuers located the tunnel, which was described as an approximately 8-square foot dugout shelter that had a pair of 24-inch entrances. Rescue crews used shovels and picks to access the victim, identified as a man, from the top, who was dead by the time they reached him. It took about two hours to extricate the man, who appeared to be in his mid-30s, according to officials.
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“Our initial onset, we didn’t know what we had other than a person in there, so the goal was to reach the person, find out if they’re alive or dead and then, find the best way to get him out," Picone said.
The area where the incident occurred is in a canyon not far from the Linda Vista Skate Park in a remote section of the Tecolote Canyon Natural Open Space Park. San Diego Fire-Rescus said there were several tents in the area, with people living down in the surrounding area near the makeshift tunnel.
“I don’t know if they were living there," Picone said on Monday. "It looks like a place where people would seek shelter, but what they were doing down there exactly, I’m not sure.”
