Woman pulled safely from arroyo by joint agencies
By Hamilton Kahn
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ALBUQUERQUE, New Mexico (KOAT) — A woman in the fast-moving water in an arroyo Saturday who was first spotted by a retired firefighter was finally pulled to safety by the coordinated efforts of 31 first responders, an Albuquerque Fire Rescue news release said.
Personnel from the Albuquerque Fire Rescue and Bernalillo County Fire Rescue agencies sent to multiple locations along the arroyo, but the woman was moving so fast that she went past two of them before she was saved near the Montgomery Boulevard overpass. She was taken up to street level on a stretcher, alert and stable, and was taken to the University of New Mexico Hospital.
“This was a dynamic rescue situation,” AFR Battalion Chief Emily Kane told KOAT at the scene. “We had a victim who was moving along in the water pretty quickly — 10 to 20 miles an hour.”
Once she had fallen in the arroyo, the woman would have had a difficult, if not impossible, time getting out on her own, Kane said.
“We saw the headwaters come down, and it was probably at least a four-foot wall of water that was rolling, turbulent. If you were in front of that and that thing came and hit you, you’d be knocked off your feet and you’d be going for a long ride,” Kane said.
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