Missing Westminster Woman, Son Found After 4-Day Ordeal

Using infrared sensors mounted on a helicopter, rescuers found a missing Westminster woman in the Sunshine Canyon Landfill near Granada Hills on Monday evening, nearly eight hours after her young son was found wandering alone in the dump.

Ngoc Tuy Thi Phan, 39, was spotted at the bottom of a ravine filled with thick brush and trees around 8:10 p.m., three days after she left her son in their disabled car to go find help.

“She was surprised and she was staring straight ahead,” said Fred Koegler, a member of the Montrose Search and Rescue Team that pulled Phan from the ravine. “I think she was dazed from all the activity. She drank water out of the creek and had a bag full of leaves she had sucked on for moisture.”

Another team member, Mark Millis, said Phan was incoherent. “Her clothes were torn. She had no shoes, no socks, no covering whatsoever on her feet. She was muddy, but it didn’t look like she was bleeding.

“She was kind of apprehensive about us getting her out,” Millis added. “She wasn’t sure who we were or what we were going to do.”

Phan apparently had driven into the landfill area with her son sometime Friday after an argument with her father, according to Los Angeles Police Lt. Anthony Alba.

But it wasn’t until Monday at 6 a.m. that Sonny Garcia, a caretaker at the landfill, found Phan’s 8-year-old son wandering near Garcia’s trailer.

Richard Phan was “dusty, with dirt all over him, hungry and thirsty,” according to Arney Berghoff, a spokesman for Browning Ferris Industries, which owns the landfill.

Phan was suffering from a mental condition and had not been taking her prescribed medication, Alba said.

Richard told rescuers that his mother’s car, a 1991 Honda Accord, broke down on a dirt access road, prompting the two to go look for help. When Richard became tired, his mother took him back to the car and told him to stay put while she resumed the search, Alba said.

By late Monday afternoon, volunteer search and rescue teams, aided by bloodhounds and horse units, had joined Los Angeles police and Los Angeles County sheriff’s units in the search. Alba estimated that more than 100 people were involved.

Richard was in intensive care at Queen of Angels Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center, where he was being treated for dehydration, exposure and minor cuts.

Phan was taken by ambulance to Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in Mission Hills, where officials could not immediately state her condition.