SAN DIEGO --
Emergency crews were called early Wednesday morning to a sewage pipe near the Otay Mesa Port of Entry where five adults were trapped underground.
Personnel from San Diego Fire rescue found four men and one woman around 2 a.m. three feet underground and about 10 feet from the end of a sewer pipe on Via De La Amistad, which is just east of the Port of Entry.
Rescuers worked for over an hour to free the adults. The five people had to crawl through mud and sewage to get out of the pipe.
Crews had the individuals remove their clothing so they could be washed down with a hose after they crawled out of the pipe. They were given blankets and taken to a local hospital.
The five adults were transferred into the custody of the U.S. Border Patrol.
One man told federal agents he paid a smuggler $5,000 to get him into the United States, U.S. Border Patrol Agent Michael Jimenez said.
Border Patrol agents sent a robot equipped with a camera down the pipe to see if there were anymore people inside but the robot got stuck in the mud and sewage.
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