March 26, 2021

"The woman... told officials she was swimming in a canal when she noticed a door and entered it. She said she eventually became lost..."

"... and ended up three miles away from where she first began, surviving on a can of ginger ale she discovered unopened along the way. Police are trying to determine if the woman was actually underground for three weeks. They say the health officials they have consulted believe it is more likely the woman was only in the sewer for two or three days. 'We don’t feel that there was any crime committed,' Ted White, a police spokesperson, said. 'But the biggest question is, is her story credible? Was she actually down there the whole time?'"

From "Naked woman rescued from Florida sewer after driver hears her screaming/Delray Beach fire rescue says woman sustained superficial injuries and had been reported missing three weeks earlier" (The Guardian).

52 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yeah, no.

Someone missed the story about the boy in the well.

-XC

Lucid-Ideas said...

Methamphetamine is a hell of drug. Ditches become canals and sewers the magical gateway to Narnia.

Ice Nine said...

The woman later told officials she was swimming in a canal when she noticed a door and entered it.

Not surprising. She broke the cardinal rule of spelunking: Never go by yourself.

Patrick said...

Didn't you used to have a "naked" tag?

I'm Not Sure said...

"She broke the cardinal rule of spelunking: Never go by yourself."

If she took someone with her, they'd have had to share that can of ginger ale.

PM said...

Thought it said surviving 'in' a can of ginger ale which I thought was confounding.

JaimeRoberto said...

Looking for Florida Man.

Gabriel said...

Remember that story about two women rescued drifting in sailboat hundreds of miles from land for 5 months and how they were attacked by sharks?

Yeah, that wasn't all it seemed either.

BUMBLE BEE said...

I'd have said windowpane.

JMW Turner said...

Wouldn't have been particularly surprised if that news item included a naked, dazed and confused "President Biden" trapped with her and sharing that tasty beverage.

Old and slow said...

In the article, they refer to a driver "seeing the women", in reference to seeing this single woman. I see this more and more lately (or perhaps just notice it). I the word "woman" not the singular form, and "women" plural?

I know, it's the Grauniad and all that, but is this the new accepted form?

tcrosse said...

Was she after a white rabbit?

Iman said...

She was saved by some lukewarm ginger ale
She ate bugs cuz she forgot her damn lunch pail
But it's all right now, in fact, it's a gas
But it's all right, she’s in the Enquirer and
it's a gas, gas, gas

Gabriel said...

Even a slightly built woman would need to have ingested somewhere between 20-30,000 calories to maintain her weight for 3 weeks; she should have lost a lot of weight if she was really underground all that time. I can see the skepticism of the medical folks who treated her

The rule of 4s (how I heard it anyway) is you can live 4 minutes without air, 4 hours without heat, 4 days without water, 4 weeks without food. Maybe she had all the water she wanted...

Lurker21 said...

Who swims in canals?

Who, when swimming in a canal, sees a door, opens it and goes inside?

Police are trying to determine if the woman was actually underground for three weeks. They say the health officials they have consulted believe it is more likely the woman was only in the sewer for two or three days.

Lost time.

Aliens?

Ken B said...

You can live in the sewer for years. Ask Chuck.

robother said...

I see what Ann is doing here. Setting up a competing meme to Instapundit's Florida Man Friday. Starting with a naked Florida Woman. Well played.

Joe Smith said...

I think the Bermuda Triangle overlaps part of Florida.

Only explanation.

That and drugs.

stevew said...

Somthin' fishy about this story. Naked, in a sewer, a can of ginger ale? I'm throwin' the BS flag on this one.

She should have just gone to 3Gs.

3 Gs Deli, Delray

cubanbob said...

No one and I mean no one with two working brain cells goes swimming in a Florida canal. You run the risk of becoming Polk Salad Annie's Grandma. As for the rest of her story drugs are without a doubt involved and she could not have survived that long. Hell even opening the door sounds too weird to be true. Eventually this will come out as a drug & alcohol bender with someone other than her boyfriend and this ending somehow in her getting into the sewer.

The Godfather said...

My wife and I lived in Ft. Lauderdale for 5 years, and the canals along some roads were always kind of scary. But I can't imagine any (sane) person jumping into a canal for a swim -- and then ENTERING A DOOR! As our President might say: Come on Man!

Fernandinande said...

Mentally ill people are so entertaining, perhaps they should be put on display again and the public charged an admission which would help pay for their care.

Greg The Class Traitor said...

3 weeks without food and you're emaciated

3 weeks without water beyond a can of ginger ale? You're dead from dehydration.

If her story is true, then magic occurred

Big Mike said...

You can enter a storm drain from a canal via a door? Has anyone checked the maps of storm drains that the municipal water department maintains?

Big Mike said...

And cubanbob is right; there's gators in those canals.

JML said...


Mentally ill people are so entertaining, perhaps they should be put on display again and the public charged an admission which would help pay for their care.

Well, for our entertainment, there was a press conference by one yesterday...

n.n said...

Curiosity almost aborted the pussyhat.

n.n said...

If her story is true, then magic occurred

Give The Guardian some credit, it's a human interest story. A departure from their traditional fare of braying fire and limestone. That said, offsets for sale. Be socially responsible and buy your offsets, NOW.

Rt41Rebel said...

"And cubanbob is right; there's gators in those canals."

Cottonmouths too.

We looked in Delray before we bought on the west coast. Charming town with a definite party vibe.

Mark said...

'We don’t feel that there was any crime committed,'

Law by feeling. Meanwhile, the LAW is that if she did not own what was behind the door or have authorization from the owner to enter, she was trespassing.

FullMoon said...

Just ordered a case of Canada Dry.For emergencies.

How'd they come up with that name anyway?

FullMoon said...

Green Door?

Browndog said...

For Christ sake-

We don't feel a crime was committed?

Yet, the BIGGEST question is...did she lie to us, committing a felony for lying to law enforcement, as to how long she said she was there?

Hmm...we may have to send this to the D.A., who may have to send it to a grand jury--

To justify if our feelings were misplaced.

Joe Smith said...

"Somthin' fishy about this story. Naked, in a sewer, a can of ginger ale?"

I'll have what she's having...

GingerBeer said...

It's pretty well established that women don't lie. Probably something to do with the second X chromosome.

I'm Not Sure said...

"It's pretty well established that women don't lie.

Study funded by women, then?

gilbar said...

Moon said...

Just ordered a case of Canada Dry.For emergencies.

How'd they come up with that name anyway?

Back in the prohibition, most eye whiskey came from Canada... Canada wet

Ambrose said...

Jean Paul Marat caught a debilitating skin disease in the Paris sewers hiding from the gendarmes after a political rally was broken up. But that did not kill him, no it took Charlotte Corday to do that.

Bunkypotatohead said...

It's never explained why she was naked.

Quaestor said...

They fear Madame X is a bit impaired, mentally speaking, like our beloved Resident.

Well, duh...

I spent several years down there working at IBM, Boca Raton. I enjoyed Delray Beach from time to time, but the canals are nothing to fuck with.

People think of the Everglades as a swamp, but it's really a river -- a river about a hundred miles wide and a foot deep. It flows out of Lake Okeechobee mostly southeast and into the Atlantic between Key Biscayne on the south and about Juno Beach to the north. Some of the outflow turns southwest and empties into the Gulf between Naples and Cape Sable.

More than a century ago the Corps of Engineers began creating canals to direct the flow and create permanently dry land. They are wide, deep, and fast-flowing. I watched a quad scull try to row upstream on Cypress Creek Canal. Working full out they managed a walking pace.

Marcus Bressler said...

How long was Jean Valjean in the sewers of Paris (in the book, not the movie)?

THEOLDMAN

n.n said...

It's pretty well established that women don't lie. Probably something to do with the second X chromosome.

Men are only partially checked by why... I mean, Y chromosome. Women: that's why.

Gravel said...

Sewers are dark and moist. Ideal for growing mushrooms.

GingerBeer said...

I'm Not Sure/n.n: It's also pretty well established that some people can't grasp sarcasm.

Rt41Rebel said...

"People think of the Everglades as a swamp, but it's really a river..."

I took my daughters on a guided airboat tour the first time they visited me. The captain seemed very knowledgable and by his appearance and age, had been out on the everglades for 40 years. He had two environmental concerns, the first was invasive species, especially large pythons, and second, the change in the salinity profile of the region caused by my very namesake. The road constricted the natural flow of fresh water, resulting in a mostly salt water environment south of the road. He told us that if we wanted to see alligators, we needed to take a tour on the north side of Rt41, as they prefer fresh water.

Quaestor said...

He had two environmental concerns, the first was invasive species, especially large pythons...

Another is the paper bark tea tree (Melaleuca quinquenervia), which is messing with the wildlife and the hydrology of the Glades. I don't know whether this is true, but a Seminole guide told me about a Roaring Twenties ultra-rich idiot who hired some barnstormers pilots to fly over the Everglades spreading tea tree seeds. Apparently, the fellow had given himself the mission to dry up South Florida.

Sounds crazy to me, and for that reason, I'm inclined to believe it.

tim in vermont said...

This sounds like a scene from a horrible book that I had to persevere to complete because I had committed to it, called The Starless Sea. There were always doors appearing, and if you went through one, you end up in an underground world, and had a good chance of being lost in space and time, only able to escape by coming out somewhere else with no idea what year it was. So if you are thinking of using this as an idea for a novel, it’s been done and the novel was lousy, so you might want to read Starless Sea as a warning on how not to write yours.

tim in vermont said...

The above review of Starless Sea was not nearly as snarky as I would like, because it doesn’t convey the novel’s awful tediousness, the writer’s abdication of any responsibility to the reader, her feeble powers of observation, oh, I could go on. BTW lady, when your half man, half owl, owl king flies by, you wouldn’t hear wingbeats! Owls are silent fliers, dammit! Wouldn’t it have been cooler to have this giant bird/man hybrid fly by without the sound of wingbeats? And more grounded in reality!

Not that I am bitter about the time lost reading that book, time I will never get back, oh no...

tim in vermont said...

On other thing, if you are going to write about Vermont in winter in a college town, and it’s going to be more than one quick scene, why not actually visit, say Middlebury, in winter and take a couple notes about what you see around you and use those, instead of using your feeble imagination. You wrote a best-seller, Night Circus, NYC is not far away. You could have done it. Or maybe that is your feeble powers of observation coming into play again.

Sir Loin said...

Tim thanks for the review. This Erin Morgenstern sounds like a real jerk.

tim in vermont said...

NPR likes her well enough, and she has written a best seller, and I am just an anonymous web commenter, but I did feel ripped off, And I always liked Ursula Le Guin, who also writes fantasy.

Paul said...

Ok.. down there 3 weeks... I am sure the ginger ale bottle was consumed in a day or so... so what did she drink? It takes about a week for parasites to start hurting you.. and I suspect there are lots of 'em in the sewer...

So, how did she survive 3 weeks? Answer.. I doubt she would have.