Woman arrested after trying to break into a home and getting stuck in the chimney

(Image credit: Twitter.com/VCFD_PIO)

last updated 10 January 2015

That's not Santa Claus: A woman was arrested Sunday after getting trapped inside the chimney of a Thousand Oaks, California, home of a man she once dated.

At 5:45 a.m., a neighbor called and reported that a woman had been stuck in the chimney for about two hours. The Ventura County Fire Department's urban search and rescue team arrived at the house, and firefighters used jackhammers to dismantle part of the chimney and poured down dish soap to lubricate the flue, KTLA reports. The woman was finally extracted at 8:22 a.m., and transferred to an area hospital. Throughout the ordeal, Capt. Mike Lindbery posted pictures of the rescue to his Twitter account.

The Ventura County Sheriff's Department later identified the woman as 30-year-old Genoveva Nunez-Figueroa. She was arrested for allegedly illegally entering a residence and providing false information to a peace officer. The owner of the home told KTLA he met Nunez-Figueroa online, and the two went on six dates. "Before you have somebody come in your house really check them out," said the man, who wished to remain anonymous. "Really give it some time before you let somebody in, because they might want to stay."

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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