A California woman who went missing from a campground last month has been found alive but in a “severely dehydrated and weakened” condition, the Nevada County Sheriff's Office said. News Release.
Esmeralda Marie Pineda, 24, disappeared Aug. 26 from a mining camp in a remote area of Nevada City, 60 miles northeast of Sacramento.
A search was launched immediately. The area was “treacherous” and required search and rescue personnel to “enter and search ravines,” the sheriff's office said. The search included the use of off-road vehicles to search the mountainous terrain.
She was found nearly two weeks later on Friday, at the top of a river valley, not far from where she went missing 12 days earlier.
Pineda, from Sacramento, was transported by helicopter from the canyon and treated at a hospital, but authorities did not know the extent of her injuries.
“The Sheriff's Office and search and rescue volunteers searched far and wide throughout the search effort and are pleased to have found her alive today,” said Sergeant Dustin Moe, who found Pineda with her partner.
Moe said authorities had not been able to speak with Pineda since finding her and were unsure how she had survived for nearly two weeks. KCRA reported.
“Who knows? Maybe she had a survival instinct,” Mo said.
