A total of 27 people were transported to hospitals with “a wide variety of injuries” including hypothermia, officials said.
A packed boat suspected of being used in a human smuggling operation capsized and broke apart in powerful surf along the rocky San Diego coast, killing at least three people and injuring more than two dozen others, authorities said. Lifeguards, the U.S. Coast Guard and other agencies responded around 10:30 a.m. Sunday following reports of an overturned vessel in the waves near the rugged peninsula of Point Loma, according to the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department. The original call was for a handful of people overboard but as rescuers arrived in boats and jet skis they quickly realized “it was going to be a bigger situation with more people,” said San Diego Lifeguard Services Lt. Rick Romero. “There are people in the water, drowning, getting sucked out the rip current there,” he said. Seven people were pulled from the waves, including three who drowned, Romero said. One person was rescued from a cliff and 22 others managed to make it to shore on their own, he said. The total death toll remained unclear, however. The U.S. Coast Guard said in a statement late Sunday that four people were dead. The local coroner’s offices listed three dead including a 41-year-old woman, a 35-year-old woman and a man of unknown age. “Once we arrived on scene, the boat had basically been broken apart,” Romero said. “Conditions were pretty rough: 5 to 6 feet of surf, windy, cold.” A total of 27 people were transported to hospitals with “a wide variety of injuries” including hypothermia, Romero said.
