Additional Coverage:
- Woman vanishes on hiking trail near San Diego, search underway (newsbreak.com)
Authorities recovered the body of a woman on Monday, suspected to be that of a 50-year-old hiker, Diem Le Nguyen, who went missing while on a hike in San Diego’s wilderness. The San Diego Police Department reported that Nguyen was last seen on Sunday morning during an outing with nearly 100 other hikers on the Nighthawk Trail in Black Mountain Open Space Park, located in the Rancho Peñasquitos neighborhood of northern San Diego. Despite efforts to locate her immediately after she was separated from her group, it wasn’t until the following morning that a search helicopter located a body within the region she had been hiking.
Although officials have yet to formally confirm the identity of the body, pending autopsy results, the operation has transitioned from a search and rescue to a recovery and investigative phase. Nguyen had embarked on the hike around 8 a.m.
PT with her group, but chose to proceed alone to the mountain’s summit after others turned back due to the heat, as per SDPD spokesperson Lt. Daniel Meyer.
She later communicated distress via a phone call to her family, mentioning extreme heat and a need for water around 10 a.m., which was the last contact she made.
The search commenced shortly before noon on Sunday, engaging not only police but also the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department’s helicopter team. Amidst this, the police solicited the public’s assistance, circulating images of Nguyen and her last known location. The day of her disappearance was notably hot, with the region experiencing temperatures in the low 90s and under a heat advisory.
Nguyen was described as being dressed in a black shirt adorned with a pink heart, black pants, a brown hat, sunglasses, and carrying a backpack. The report also included a separate but related incident of a California hiker, Luke McClish, who survived a harrowing 10 days in the Northern California wilderness of the Santa Cruz Mountains. He was eventually found in a ravine, having managed to stay alive on creek water.
Read More About This Story:
- Woman vanishes on hiking trail near San Diego, search underway (newsbreak.com)