Woman Swept 4 Miles Down Channel Rescued by Deputies
A Lakewood woman was swept four miles down the fast-moving San Gabriel River flood control channel before she was rescued by Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies, who spotted her after a friend called for help.
Elena Edwards, 19, and her friend apparently failed to anticipate the speed of the water and the channel’s slippery bottom when they tried to wade across the river bed near Del Amo Boulevard in Lakewood, as a shortcut to visit another friend late Tuesday, according to Deputy Ronald Spear, 28, who rescued the woman from the waterway.
Spear and his partner, Deputy David Halm, 23, spotted the screaming woman floating down the channel near the Willow Street crossing in Long Beach.
Spear plucked the woman from the 4-foot-deep water as Halm held onto him.
Although tired and cold after the ordeal, Edwards did not require hospitalization.
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