SAN DIEGO (FOX 5/KUSI) — A suspected smuggling boat washed ashore just south of the Ocean Beach Pier Wednesday morning, officials with San Diego Fire-Rescue (SDFD) confirmed.
Local lifeguards found the panga on a bed of rocks along the coastline around 4 a.m. Life vests and gas canisters were also found floating nearby in the water.
The lifeguards interviewed witnesses at the scene and found out that more than a dozen people were believed to be onboard the boat before it made landfall.
Witnesses also notified authorities that a man had slipped and fell while trying to get away. That individual was located and transported to a local hospital to be treated for a broken leg.
“Someone said that they might have seen 15 people appear and then right around that same time, another lifeguard found a victim,” said SDFD Lt. Brian Clark. “So once we found that victim, we communicated with him through an interpreter and he said he was the last one and that there was no one else in the water, that there was no one else that was down there and everyone else got off the boat.”
U.S. Border Patrol was called in to search for other people who may have been on the panga. There’s no word yet on whether anyone was taken into custody.
