Lyndsey Kennedy: Florida woman rescued from storm drain for third time in less than two years

A Florida woman was pulled from a storm drain for the third time in two years last week.

Officers and firefighters from the Delray Beach Police Department responded around noon on Wednesday to a report of a woman possibly in distress while swimming in a canal near the 500 block of Lindell Boulevard.

Officers approached the woman, identified as Lyndsey Jane Kennedy, and asked if she needed assistance, according to the department.

Lyndsey Kennedy allegedly ignored them and climbed into a storm drain pipe. Delray police said she refused to come out and began crawling deeper into the culvert pipe that ran beneath Lindell Boulevard.

The Delray Beach Fire Rescue Special Operations Team used a ladder and a rescue harness to pull Kennedy out while firefighters kept her between two sections of pipe.

Kennedy appeared to have minor injuries, and he was treated at the scene before being taken to the hospital for further evaluation.

Delray police said the fire department previously rescued Kennedy from a storm drain after she had gone missing for three weeks in March 2021.

Kennedy told police she went swimming in a canal near her boyfriend’s house on March 3, the same night her boyfriend reported her missing, according to local news outlets at the time. She claimed to have entered a doorway in the shallow part of the canal while swimming and discovered a tunnel. She followed tunnels until she realized she was lost.

After a woman called 911 to report a woman yelling for help from inside the drain, Kennedy was eventually rescued near the intersection of West Atlantic Avenue and SW 11th Avenue. She stated that she had stopped walking in that area because she saw light and people walking by.

The woman, 43 at the time, told police she had been walking in the sewer system for about three weeks. She also claimed to have been living off an unopened can of ginger ale she discovered in the drain while looking for a way out.

Delray police said Kennedy “appeared to be coherent” and didn’t need to be Baker Acted (involuntarily institutionalized). Police contacted her mother, who stated that she has a history of mental illness, is a frequent user of illegal narcotics, and has a history of doing “odd things” and “making bad decisions.”

Kennedy’s family members said she went to a Bible study with her mother before going missing, where they learned about the prophet Elijah going on a journey. Kennedy, according to her relatives, wrote her mother a note claiming she was going on her own journey.

Despite this, her family believes her journey was not meant to end in a storm drain.

She was reportedly listed as “endangered” on the sheriff’s missing persons paperwork, and a detective wrote in the report that she went missing “under similar circumstances” in April 2020.

Kennedy’s third rescue from the storm drain took place in Grand Prairie, Texas, two months later in May 2021. Police in the town were searching for four days before her mother and best friend found her at a canal.

In this instance, she had reportedly wandered off from a rehab facility after checking in. When police saw the woman near a creek and began to approach her, she went into a nearby storm drain, according to WPEC.

A tracking app on her cellphone allowed her family to find her last location before she disappeared underground. Before she was rescued, her family and friends reportedly dropped bags of food and Gatorade into manholes in the area.

Kennedy was reportedly arrested in Florida in July 2021 after a hit-and-run occurred when she sped off from a gas station after stealing beer. She almost ran over the store’s clerk, who chased her outside, then she ran several red lights before crashing with a car.