A naked woman was rescued from a storm drain yesterday in the South Florida city of Delray Beach. A passerby heard her screams from below, called 911, and rescue crews arrived to help. But now authorities are questioning how she ended up there to begin with. The entrance is not big enough to fit a person, and the Florida woman appeared to have been stuck for some time.
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An Unusual Rescue
A missing Florida woman, who has now been identified as Lyndsey Jane Kennedy, was reported on March 3. On March 24, she was discovered trapped in an eight-foot storm drain off Atlantic Avenue and Southwest 11th Avenue in Delray Beach. Someone walking by had heard her cries from the drain and called 911. Firefighters then came and pulled Kennedy to safety.
The Delray Beach Fire Rescue spokeswoman Dani Moschella told local news: “She was unable to stand up. She didn’t have any clothes on. She was very dirty. She had some superficial wounds. Her knees were all scraped up… I don’t know how much longer she would have been OK down there. The idea that somebody might be down there for any length of time is disturbing. It’s dirty, dangerous, there’s snakes, rats, garbage, dirt and leaves, anything that’s on the street that washes into a sewer, and it smells terrible.”
Speaking to the Sun-Sentinel, Delray Beach Police spokesman Ted White added that “She claims that she’s been in the storm drain for a significant amount of time. The biggest question is how long she has been in there, how did she get in there and why?” As of now, however, foul play is not suspected.
Kennedy’s mother has now shared that her daughter has a history of mental illness and drug use, according to The New York Post. The Post also quotes the curious incident report: “She claimed that she became curious as to where the tunnel led and continued to follow it. “That tunnel led to another tunnel and so on until she realized that she was lost. Kennedy claimed she had been walking around the sewer system for approximately 3 weeks.”
However, when Kennedy was taken to Delray Medical Center she did not meet the mental criteria to be hospitalized involuntarily under Florida’s Baker Act. Regardless of her motives for entering the storm drain, she is lucky to have survived. As Ted White told the Sun-Sentinel “This is one of the most bizarre situations our officers have ever experienced.”
Powerful Photos of the Shocking Operation
