A total of 30 people were on the boat, officials said. Most of them were able to walk out to shore but seven of them got sucked into a rip current, Romero said.
“Our goal was just to rescue everyone we can from the water and on the beach and get them out safely and get them transported to the hospital as quickly as we can, Romero said. Video shows a vessel overturned and broken apart that was carrying 30 people in a possible human smuggling operation, officials said.
Three people died at the scene, according to San Diego Fire-Rescue.
At least 27 others were injured and taken to area hospitals for treatment, including Sharp Memorial, Palomar Medical Center West, Alvarado, UCSD Medical Center, Grossmont Hospital, Kaiser Clairemont Mesa, Kaiser Zion and Paradise Valley Hospital, according to SDFD.
Three people died and more than two dozen people were rescued from the water off of the coast of Point Loma Sunday after a vessel overturned and broke apart in.
4 dead, 25 hospitalized after boat overturns off San Diego coast
Witness photo
and last updated 2021-05-03 09:40:17-04
Four people are dead and several others are injured after a vessel overturned in the waters off Point Loma Sunday morning, according to San Diego Fire-Rescue.
The department reports rescue efforts began being staged near the 200 block of Catalina Boulevard around 10:30 a.m.
The boat was possibly being used to transport undocumented people into the United States, according to Jeffery Stephenson of the Customs and Border Protection Public Affairs Office.
Eyewitness video shot by a bystander who watched from shore shows several people jumping from the boat into rough waters and others struggling to swim to land. The 40-foot boat quickly breaks up in the 5- to 6-feet of surf creating a large swath of debris. Some of the passengers can be seen standing in waist-deep water searching through debris for some of the other passengers.
4 dead, more than 20 hospitalized after suspected smuggling vessel overturns off San Diego
Four people are dead and nearly two dozen people were sent to hospitals after a suspected smuggling vessel overturned off the coast of San Diego on Sunday morning.
San Diego Fire-Rescue Department spokesperson Monica Munoz told CNN they received reports of a vessel that overturned near the Cabrillo National Monument in Point Loma around 10:27 a.m. (1:27 p.m. ET).
James Gartland, lifeguard chief for San Diego, told reporters it appeared the boat hit the reef, broke up and 30 people “came out of the vessel.”
“This was a mass rescue operation that turned into a mass casualty incident,” Gartland said.