On Thursday, May 25, 2006 at 2:53 p.m., six companies of Los Angeles firefighters, two LAFD rescue ambulances, one heavy rescue, one urban search and rescue unit, one EMS battalion captain, and one battalion chief officer command team under the direction of Battalion Chief John Nowell responded to a “Confined Space Rescue” incident at 77 Park Lane in the Coldwater Canyon/Mulholland Drive area.
Firefighters arrived to find a large, 20,000 square foot mansion, which was under construction. Rescuers were directed by construction crews to the basement of the large structure to find a 30 year-old woman trapped, 50 feet into a 16 inch diameter, horizontal air conditioning duct. Due to the precarious location of the trapped woman, additional firefighters and an urban search and rescue team were immediately requested.
Apparently, the woman ran onto the construction site and was extremely agitated at the construction crew. She immediately ran into the basement, ascended a ladder to the ceiling of the basement and crawled head-first into the 16 inch air conditioning duct. As she traversed the horizontal duct, she became wedged 50 feet into the duct. As firefighters developed a strategy to safely extricate the woman from the duct by dismantling it, other firefighters attempted to coax her to back out of the pipe herself.
At the coaxing of firefighters, the woman began to slowly back out of the pipe feet first, inch by inch. 43 firefighters spent almost an hour assisting the woman in self-extricating herself from her trapped location. Fortunately, the woman was removed without damaging the home. She suffered minor scrapes and scratches and was transported to a local hospital for evaluation. The cause of the woman’s actions have not been determined and the incident is under investigation by the proper law enforcement authorities.