A woman was found in the Northern California wilderness on Friday, 12 days after going missing, officials said.
Esmeralda Marie Pineda, 24, was found Friday afternoon by the Nevada County Sheriff’s Office in Nevada City, California, at the top of a canyon near the Yuba River and Sweetland Creek, the sheriff’s office wrote on Facebook.
Nevada City is located just over 60 miles north of Sacramento, where Pineda is from.
Pineda was “severely dehydrated and emaciated” when she was found, the sheriff’s office said, adding that she “required immediate medical attention.”
NBC News affiliate KYMA of Yuma, Arizona, reported Pineda was suffering from sun exposure.
Deputies on scene requested medical services by air and the California Highway Patrol responded with a helicopter, the sheriff’s office said. The North San Juan Fire Department also responded to give medical attention.
Less than an hour after she was found, Pineda was airlifted from the canyon and taken to a hospital for treatment. The sheriff’s office said Pineda’s condition and the extent of her injuries is unknown.
“The Sheriff’s Office and our search and rescue volunteers covered extensive ground throughout our search, and we are thankful today to find her alive,” NCSO Sgt. Dustin Moe said.
Officials began searching for Pineda on Aug. 26 after she was reported missing from a mining camp near the middle fork of the Yuba River and Sweetland Creek, the NCSO said.
Moe told KYMA that Pineda had been camping with three friends in the canyon by the Middle Yuba River on Aug. 25 when she expressed wanting to go back to Sacramento.
When the friends woke up the next day, Pineda was gone, KYMA reported.
“So, her friends went searching for her during that day, and couldn’t find any signs whether she had made it out,” Moe told the news station.
The sheriff’s office said the area “was treacherous in nature and required skilled Nevada County Sheriff’s Search and Rescue volunteers to repel into and out of the canyon to look for her.”
Moe told KYMA that there are not trail systems in the area on the Middle Fork where Pineda was, “so people just generally don’t go down there.”
Pineda being found atop the canyon indicated to rescuers that she had made a steep climb.
“And it’s not just a gradual, nice walk up, it’s your on your hands and feet climbing up the canyon walls,” Moe said, according to KYMA.
The outlet reported that Moe and his partner were the ones to find Pineda.
“She was able to pick her head up and kind of wave at us,” Moe said.
Moe told the station he is not sure how Pineda survived nearly two weeks alone in the wilderness.
“Who knows? I mean, maybe she had good survival instincts,” he said. “She had luck behind her and she managed to pull through those 12 days.”
