Woman rescued from a 25-foot-deep hole

Firefighters pull her from old septic tank cavity next to her mobile home with minor injuries

Firefighters rescued a woman who had fallen into a 25-foot-deep hole next to her home in a Fontana mobilehome park on Thursday.

She escaped with minor injuries.

Eric Sherwin, a spokesman for the San Bernardino County Fire Department, said the woman was walking on red-brick tiles, just after 9:45 a.m., when they collapsed under her and she fell into an old septic tank.

Members of an urban search-and-rescue team that included Rancho Cucamonga Fire District firefighters constructed a tripod over the 3-foot-wide hole and attached a rope to it. That rope was on a crank attached to the back of a battalion chief’s SUV.

One firefighter, who has about 15 years of experience in such rescues, was lowered into the hole.

Sherwin said the idea of lowering a ladder was rejected because the woman was injured from tiles falling on her, and rescuers were concerned she might have difficulty climbing.

They gave the woman a helmet to wear.

Firefighters pulled her to the surface about noon. She was taken away from the Hacienda Mobile Park at 8200 Cherry Ave. via ambulance.

Lizeth Gonzalez, 20, whose mom Gloria Gonzalez is a good friend of the woman, said the victim is 39 years old.

The victim has four children, from a 1-year-old son to a daughter in college. She had been doing laundry; there is a building with washers and dryers about 100 feet from her home.

A middle-school daughter

heard her mother yelling. The daughter told her father, Gonzalez said, who didn’t believe his wife was in a hole until he heard her panicked voice.

That’s when someone called 911.

The methodical rescue from

the 3-foot-wide pit took about two hours.

“She was pale as a ghost,” Gonzalez said when she saw the woman after the rescue. “She looked like she could barely get her breath in. …

“We thank God she’s OK, and she was able to get out,” Gonzalez said.

Sherwin said search-andrescue teams perform this type of rescue several times each year, particularly in the High Desert. He said these septic tanks are typically in concrete vaults that include a concrete lid. He couldn’t say on Thursday whether this accident was related to the recordsetting rainstorm that had just passed through.

“This is something we train for constantly,” Sherwin said.

The city was sending someone from the building and safety department to examine the septic tank, Sherwin said.

WILL LESTER — STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER A woman is rolled out on a gurney and placed into an ambulance after being rescued from a 25-foot-deep hole — later to be described as an old septic tank hole — in the patio of her mobile home at the Hacienda Mobile Park on Cherry Avenue in Fontana on Thursday.

COURTESY OF SAN BERNARDINO FIRE DEPARTMENT First responders work to bring a woman in a 25-foot hole in Fontana to safety. She got out with only minor injuries.

WILL LESTER — STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER Family members speak to San Bernardino County Sheriff following the rescue of a woman who fell into a 25-foot-deep hole on Thursday.