Santa Rosa woman seeking deputy trapped with group: 'I want to hug his neck'
SANTA ROSA, Calif. -
Jennifer Whitt Arrington wants to find the hero that saved her.
Specifically, she's trying to track down a Sonoma County Sheriff's deputy, whom she described as 50 years old with brown hair and glasses, who was trapped with a group of 35 people at the Mark West Lodge on Santa Rosa on Oct. 11.
"I need to hug his neck!!!!" she told KTVU on Monday, a week after the devastating wildfires ravaged her city.
That night, 16 deputies spent hours in the Mark West Springs neighborhood of Santa Rosa, getting people to safety. Sheriff Rob Giordano released body camera video from one deputy that night showing the frantic effort to evacuate residents from the Tubbs Fire barreling through the city.
Another deputy - the one Arrington wants to hug - got trapped by fire on the road as he tried to escort residents out of the neighborhood, Giordano said. The deputy huddled at the Mark West Lodge with 35 residents, waiting, as the fire burned around them.
KTVU reached out to the sheriff's department on Monday to identify the deputy, but did not immediately hear back.
UPDATE: The San Francisco Chronicle found the deputy, Mark Aldridge.