Woman rescued from icebound freeway

She suffers hypothermia after being stranded with her boyfriend in a surprise snowstorm along Interstate 8 east of San Diego.
From the Associated Press
February 16, 2008


SAN DIEGO -- A rescue helicopter airlifted a woman from an icebound freeway Friday after a surprise snowstorm left her with severe hypothermia.

The storm lashed San Diego County with rain and snow, stranding as many as 500 motorists on a mountain freeway and pouring mud down onto another roadway but causing no major damage.

The Border Patrol said the 21-year-old woman was found with her boyfriend about 10 a.m. along Interstate 8 near the Pine Valley Bridge, about 40 miles east of San Diego. Agents believe she may have been traveling with a group of migrants and had been left behind, said spokesman Mark Endicott.

She was conscious but not alert enough to be interviewed before she was taken to Sharp Memorial Hospital in San Diego, where she was listed as stable, he said. The man, 30, was taken to an immigration detention facility.

Earlier in the morning, two other men suspected of being illegal immigrants from Mexico were found in a snowy canyon just north of the border. They were located about 4 a.m., and one was taken to a hospital suffering from hypothermia, Endicott said.

A 27-mile stretch of Interstate 8, which runs through the mountains in the eastern county and is a main artery from California into Arizona, was reopened before dawn following a 12-hour shutdown.

The California Highway Patrol was escorting cars through the pass, although motorcycles still were not allowed because of black ice on the road.

The freeway was closed shortly after 4 p.m. Thursday when blowing snow and ice made the roadway impassable.

"It was just a big dump of snow, real fast," accompanied by high winds, said CHP Officer Jim Bettencourt.

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