Boy Trapped In Griffith Park Sewage Pipe For 12 Hours Found Alive

GRIFFITH PARK, CA — A 13-year-old boy is alive today thanks to the frantic search and rescue effort to find him trapped inside the maze of Griffith Park sewage pipes that lead out to the LA River.

While celebrating the Easter holiday with his family in the park, Jesse Hernandez plunged 25 feet down into a sewage pipe, prompting a frantic 12-hour search to find him alive somewhere within the 2,400-foot byzantine maze of pipes. The nightmare ended Monday morning at 5:41 a.m., when Los Angeles Fire Department Capt. Erik Scott announced they found the boy "alive and talking."

"We have found Jesse Hernandez," he said.

The search proved uniquely challenging, and Hernandez is lucky to be alive after being trapped overnight inside the pipe system where currents dragged him along at 15 mph. Because of the danger, rescue workers were unable to enter the pipes themselves to find him. Instead they were forced to study maps while sending a camera strapped to a flotation device down into the water. They monitored various points of pipeline hoping to catch the boy if he floated by.

"That place is a maze," Los Angeles Police Sgt. Bruno La Hoz told the Los Angeles Times Sunday evening. "We don't know where the drain pipe goes to."

Firefighters had narrowed the search to two main areas and opened a maintenance hatch near the intersection of the Ventura (134) and Golden State (5) freeways and found Jesse, Scott said.

"Based on intelligence and mapping we two have main areas of concern," Scott told reporters at the scene around 5 a.m. The LAFD was joined in the search for the teen by the Los Angeles Police Department, the California Highway Patrol, Park Rangers, the Department of Water and Power and the Bureau of Sanitation.

Firefighters gave him a cellphone so he could reassure his family, and paramedics took the teen to a hospital for decontamination and medical aid, Scott said.

Hernandez had fallen into the pipe at about 4:30 p.m. Easter Sunday. Hernandez and his friends had reportedly climbed a chain-link fence around an abandoned maintenance shack and were playing inside when a plank broke apart plunging the boy 25 feet down into the pipe, officials said. A bystander reported the incident, LAFD spokeswoman Margaret Stewart said.

The search extended down the L.A. River and inside a water reclamation plant in Glendale, CBS2 reported.

City News Service contributed to this report. Photo courtesy of the Los Angeles Fire Department