https://www.nydailynews.com/news/nat...n4i-story.html

A Florida woman who was found naked inside a storm drain this week says she had been trapped underground for three weeks after venturing into a tunnel.

The woman told police she was swimming in a Delray Beach canal on March 3 when she opened a door that led her to a series of tunnels. She eventually got lost and wandered through the dirty tunnels for weeks until she ended up in a drainage ditch near a busy road, according to a police report obtained by the South Florida Sun Sentinel.

The 43-year-old woman, whose name is being withheld because of her mental health and addiction issues, was rescued Tuesday after a passerby heard her screaming for help. Firefighters were called to the scene and had to use a ladder and a harness to get the unclothed woman to the ground in a surreal scene that remains a mystery to local officials.

'I know they are trying to find out if the story does match,' Delray Beach Mayor Shelly Petrolia told the Sentinel on Wednesday. 'The story is so bizarre. But people should know better than to go into the sewer system... This is not the action of a rational person.'

Fire officials said the sewer system is filled with garbage, dirt, rats and even snakes.

'Anything that's on the street that washes into a sewer, and it smells terrible,' said Delray Beach Fire Rescue spokeswoman Dani Moschella.

It's not clear if the woman ate anything while trapped underground, but she told police she found an unopened bottle of ginger ale, according to the report.

It also appears that she left a note to her family a day before she went missing saying she needed to leave to go find herself. Investigators believe she may have gotten into the tunnels through a canal located at a golf course about a mile from her boyfriend's home. The canal is owned and maintained by the Florida Department of Transportation.