This is terrible
More than 100 firefighters are searching for a boy who fell into an L.A. drainage pipe
Firefighters, police officers, urban search-and-rescue crews, and swift-water rescuers in Los Angeles are searching for a 13-year-old boy who plummeted 25 feet into a drainage pipe Sunday at Griffith Park.
Jesse Hernandez, 13, was at the park for his family's annual Easter picnic. Hernandez and his cousins entered an abandoned maintenance building and were jumping on wooden planks when one broke, the Los Angeles Times reports, sending Hernandez down a 4-foot-wide drainage pipe that feeds into the L.A. River. "That place is a maze," Los Angeles Police Sgt. Bruno La Hoz told the Times. "We don't know where the drain pipe goes to."
Officials are stationed at different drains, in the hopes that Hernandez will come out of a pipe, and are trying to determine if Hernandez may be stuck in a chamber in the system. Because the drainage area has various depths of water moving at about 15 mph, it's too dangerous for rescuers to enter on their own, a spokesman for the Los Angeles Fire Department said. The search will continue through the night, with Hernandez's family keeping vigil in Griffith Park. "We called, sent text messages — it rings but it goes to voicemail," family friend Dominique Barraza told the Times. "He's too young. It's just too crazy. I still can't believe it."