A woman has died after getting stuck in a 20-foot well in rural Northern California, according to officials.
Local authorities received a 911 call on Wednesday reporting that a woman was trapped inside the well in the Fruitland Ridge area, Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Erin Inskip told the Eureka Times-Standard Thursday.
“Deputies responded to the scene and conducted the initial investigation, while the Southern Humboldt Technical Rescue Team carried out the rescue operation,” Inskip said.
It’s unclear how the woman, who was not publicly identified, ended up inside the well. Although Inskip said the circumstances were not considered suspicious.
The Independent has reached out to the sheriff’s office for updates.
Authorities received the 911 call just before noon, local time, the local independent news site Redheaded Blackbelt reported.
Scanner traffic indicated that the woman had been submerged in water in the 20-foot-deep well since around 10 p.m. the previous night, according to the news site. But that information had not been independently confirmed by authorities.
Aside from the sheriff’s office and rescue team, local volunteer fire departments were also reportedly dispatched to the well. The teams cleared the area around 3:23 p.m., according to the news site.
The Southern Humboldt Technical Rescue Team is volunteer-based with members “donating countless hours to training and lifesaving missions across our county,” the sheriff’s office wrote in a May Facebook post.
“From missing person searches to emergency response in some of Humboldt’s toughest terrain, these highly trained volunteers answer the call when our community needs them most, often at any hour and in any condition,” the sheriff’s office said during National Search and Rescue Week.
