VIDEO/PHOTOS: Firefighters rescued a woman trapped in a small chimney in San Fernando on Tuesday. AIR7 flew over the scene where several Los Angeles firefighters were working to free the woman from the chimney. It happened at a municipal building at the City of San Fernando Recreation Center on N. Park Avenue. Officials say the small building is used for storage.
According to LAFD, an approximately 30-year-old woman was discovered about three feet deep within the chimney/exhaust flue. Members of the LAFD’s Urban Search and Rescue Team had to use a ladder to reach her and then used a harness to lift her up and out of the chimney. Video shows the crew lifting the woman out of the chimney. Over a dozen firefighters stood on the roof as they worked to free the woman.
Eventually, she was lifted out and lowered to the roof, where she was strapped to a gurney and lowered to the ground using the truck ladder as a crane. The woman was alert and conscious as she was loaded into an ambulance and taken away from the scene. “It’s crazy! You would think it’s a show that somebody put on, and the show is over, but it wasn’t a show. It’s reality,” said witness Jose Rivera.
Witnesses say the woman was acting erratically before she got stuck. “I could see a lady on top of the roof. She was pulling her shirt up, then pulling her pants down, just on the roof like, dancing,” said witness Israel Olivas. “I come around again and I see her hands waving out the chimney. She’s just screaming, ‘Help! Help! Help!'” It’s unknown how the woman became stuck in the first place.
