"The adrenalin was like Jeanette you need to get out, you need to do whatever you can," said San Antonio resident Jeanette Berlanga.
Jeanette Berlanga says she runs with her boyfriend every morning at Lion's park. Friday, she says that run turned into a very scary one. She says while running she fell into the edge of a large hole.
"My full body went in and I didn't touch the ground, so I didn't know how deep that was," said Berlanga.
Jeanette says minutes after she fell, she saw this truck drive into the same area. An off duty San Antonio police officer, on his normal route home got stuck in the hole. He was thankfully able to get out of his truck before it was sucked in further. SAWS says they were told about the large break around 1 Friday morning and within 20 minutes they say they had crews in the area. But, Jeanette and the man driving the truck said they did not see any cones or indication it wasn't safe to be in the area.
"Hiawatha is a pretty small street and it was certainly very dark, but we put cones up and we were there overnight," said Anne Hayden with the San Antonio Water System.
SAWS says it was a cast iron pipe, which release a lot of water when they break. That saturation along with how wet the soil already was, most likely caused the break. Jeanette and the driver of this truck are very grateful this situation was not worse.
"From one minute to another, things can lead up and escalate really quickly, thankfully me and my boyfriend and the cop are OK," said Berlanga.
SAWS says the break would be repaired by late Friday evening or early Saturday.
SEE PREVIOUS STORY BELOW:
An off-duty officer heading home after his shift drove into a sinkhole at a South Side park early Friday morning, but he was able to get out and was unharmed.
The incident happened just before 7 a.m. at South Side Lions Park, off Pecan Valley Drive and Kashmuir.
According to the San Antonio Police Department, the officer was driving down a dirt road behind Kashmuir when he noticed a lot of standing water in the area. He did not think it was unusual considering the rain, and drove into the sinkhole.
The truck was partially submerged in water, but he managed to get out okay. It took crews about an hour to tow the truck out of the hole, which may have been caused by a water main break in the area.
SAPD said San Antonio Water Systems crews were in the area, but the spot where the apparent sinkhole formed had not been cordoned off.
We also received reports through social media that a jogger fell into the hole just minutes before the incident involving the officer. The jogger claimed she managed to climb out and was not hurt.
Officers had not confirmed that claim.
Reader Comments
to our Newsletter