Why A Woman Had To Be Rescued From Storm Drains In Two Different States
The two drains were 1,000 miles apart — in Florida and Texas.
Delray Beach Fire Rescue / Facebook A Florida woman who was rescued from an underground tunnel in March has just been found in another storm drain in Texas.
Police in Texas were searching for the missing woman, 43-year-old Lyndsey Kennedy, for a week before coming across her. When she saw police approaching, she slipped into a nearby storm drain.
This follows a previous rescue mission in March in which the same woman was saved from a Florida storm drain.
The missing woman was found in a drain pipe in Texas.
The Grand Prairie Police Department, in the suburbs of Dallas, went searching for the woman after she had wandered out of the rehabilitation facility in which she had been staying.
Her family was able to track her phone to the last known location before she went underground and dropped bags of food into manholes around the area in order to sustain her.
She eventually climbed out of the 6-foot drain pipe by herself on Saturday, May 29 and was taken to a nearby hospital where she was placed on a psychiatric hold.
She was previously rescued from a Florida storm drain.
Two months prior, Kennedy was rescued from a storm drain in Florida's Delray Beach after having been missing for three weeks.
The Delray Beach Fire Rescue was able to save the unclothed woman after a passerby heard her crying out for help. Authorities said she was dangerously weak and unable to stand up by herself after being removed from the drain.
"I don’t know how much longer she would have been OK down there," Delray Beach Fire Rescue spokesperson Dani Moschella said at the time of the rescue.
"The idea that somebody might be down there for any length of time is disturbing. It’s dirty, dangerous, there’s snakes, rats, garbage, dirt and leaves, anything that’s on the street that washes into a sewer, and it smells terrible."
She told authorities that she had been swimming in a canal near her boyfriend’s home but got trapped while exploring a tunnel.
The woman is being treated for mental health issues.
Kennedy’s family reported that she has been dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder and psychosis after being in an abusive relationship for several years.
The prevalence of PTSD in survivors of intimate partner violence has been documented to be as high 63.8 percent in comparison to rates in the general population, which vary from approximately 1 percent to 12 percent.
When she went missing in Florida, her boyfriend reported that she had just moved back in with him after being separated for 3 months. The couple has been on and off for 10 years.
Her mother also stated at the time that her daughter struggles with drug addiction. It was also reported that she had gone missing under similar circumstances in April 2020.
Her family plans to take her back to Florida once she can leave the Texas healthcare facility, and care for her around friends and loved ones.
Alice Kelly is a writer living in Brooklyn, New York. Catch her covering all things social justice, news, and entertainment. Keep up with her Twitter for more.