Boy Rescued From Flood Channel

Firefighters rescued a 17-year-old boy who was swept more than a mile downstream Saturday when he took a shortcut across a rain-swollen wash in Pacoima.

Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman Brian Humphrey said the boy was hospitalized in fair condition. He was leaving a swap meet about 8:30 a.m. when he waded across a wash near the 500 block of Glenoaks Boulevard.

“He was very fortunate to be saved and fortunate that someone was there to call 911,” Humphrey said. “It is illegal and illogical for anyone to be inside a flood control channel.”

The boy somehow got around a fence lining the waterway, which is filled with fast-moving runoff from recent rainstorms, Humphrey said.

Bystanders at the swap meet heard the boy’s screams for help and called 911.

“He said later that he thought he was going to die” as the cold current sucked him under, Humphrey said. The boy’s identity was not released, but officials said he was an area resident.

Nearly 100 firefighters, including a swift-water rescue team, raced to position themselves at intervals downstream. Near the intersection of the 5 and 118 freeways, one of the rescuers used a rope to lower himself 12 feet vertically into the wash and plucked the boy out of the water.

Humphrey said hypothermia already was setting in as paramedics rushed the boy to Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in Mission Hills.

“Flood channels are deceptively dangerous,” Humphrey said, adding that they can remain perilous for days or weeks after major rainstorms.