The boat capsized off of Point Loma Diego during a suspected human smuggling operation
The following written content from Karen Kucher and David Hernandez
Emergency crews got the call shortly before 10:30 a.m. after state park workers found people in distress in the water near the Cabrillo National Monument, officials said.
Lifeguards helped pull 25 victims from the water, five of those in “CPR status,” meaning they were having trouble breathing, said Jose Ysea, a spokesman with the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department.
Three people died and 27 others were transported to local hospitals with what Ysea described as “varying degrees of injuries.”
Video from OnScene TV showed medics performing CPR on two men on a dock while a Coast Guard helicopter crew lowered a man in a basket onto a field. Medics took some people away on gurneys, while others walked away alongside medics.
There were reports that the group had been riding in a low-slung panga, a type of boat often used by smugglers to bring people illegally into the United States from Mexico. Pangas typically are powered by outboard motors.
Human and drug smugglers increasingly turned to the Pacific Ocean as an alternate way into the United States after the Trump administration tightened border infrastructure on land in recent years.
Ysea said by the time he got to the scene, near the national monument, a large “debris field” could be seen in the water.
“It is very rocky over there, and the waves, while they weren’t too high, they looked pretty strong,” he said, strong enough to slam a boat into the rocks.
Several Coast Guard vessels were sent to the area and were searching for victims, said Supervisory Border Patrol Agent Jeffery Stephenson. Read more from LATimes
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