Members of the Phoenix Fire Department flew to Mexico to search for a man who fell into a sinkhole and was swept away in a storm drain.
Fox News reported that the man fell into the sinkhole on Oct.14 in Hermosillo, Mexico, and had been missing since then. Members of the fire department, and an advisory team from Arizona, along with Phoenix councilman Michael Nowakowski, and Betty Guardado, a councilwoman from Phoenix, flew to Mexico to lend a hand in searching for the man, according to the news outlet.
“The team was able to assist and lend their technical expertise to the responders in Hermosillo in a complex rescue operation of a missing adult male that fell into a sinkhole and was swept underground into a storm drain,” according to a post written on the Phoenix Facebook page.
“Through our Sister Cities program, and with the generosity of Cutter aviation, our members were able to make the trip and ensure operations were conducted effectively and safely,” the post read.
Authorities actively on the case said that there were many different pipes that the man could have gone through after being swept into the storm drain. The team was working together to navigate through the pipe system to find him, according to Fox News. The Phoenix team was there to ensure the search was conducted safely before they returned to Phoenix in the early morning of Oct. 19, according to the New York Daily News.
ABC 15 reported that because there were different pipes in the drain system that the man could have gone down, the authorities would be searching by trial and error.
He has not been found at the time of writing, according to Fox News.
Since 1975, the city of Hermosillo and Phoenix had been sister cities and continued to do so even now.
“At the heart of all Sister City programs is an agreement, signed by the mayors of each Sister City, confirming the commitment of each community to the Sister City program, according to the Sister City program website. The Sister Cities were a way to ensure that cross-cultural communication with each other was spread to build a better opportunity for business, according to Fox News.