US firefighters rescued a woman from a chimney after she became stuck while allegedly breaking into the home of a man she met online, reports said Monday.
TV footage showed emergency personnel dismantling the chimney brick-by-brick to reach the woman, stuck eight feet down, according to local television channel KTLA.
The man whose home she was trying to get into -- who declined to give his name -- said they had met online and dated a few times.
"She seemed totally cool, until the first flag was her actually being on my roof two weeks ago," he told KTLA, adding: "I hope she gets help. I hope she stays offline."
A neighbour in Thousand Oaks, northwest of Los Angeles, described how the firefighters turned up in the early hours after reports of a woman crying, and finally freed her after dawn on Monday.
She was identified as 30-year-old Genoveva Nunez-Figueroa.
"Nobody would really say anything. And then finally one of the battalion chiefs said 'There's a woman stuck in the chimney,'" neighbor Steven Breslau told KTLA.
Captain Mike Lindbery of the Ventura County Fire Department tweeted pictures from the scene Sunday. "Chimney flue was lubricated with dish soap prior to hoisting patient," he wrote.
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