San Diego

US Citizen Missing in Baja California, Mexico

“When they came back about 90 minutes later, she was gone, there was no trace of her or the dog,” said, the friend of missing, Victoria Langsett.

Friends and family want help from the United States to find an American citizen living abroad who disappeared during a hike Thursday in a Baja California, Mexico desert. 

Kat Hammontre, 68, and her dog, Tootsie, went hiking in the desert near San Felipe with a group of about six friends but she started to have difficulty walking the trail and told her friends to go on without her. 

Hammontre said she would wait in the parking lot, but when the group returned, she was nowhere to be found.

"When they came back about 90 minutes later, she was gone. There was no trace of her or the dog; No sign of a wild animal attack," Victoria Langsett, a friend of the missing, said.

Search teams, including Mexican military helicopters have since been looking for Hammontre. 

Langsett hopes that someone from the U.S. has a search dog that may be able to help.

"A Bloodhound right now is the only hope of finding her, she’s been out there for three nights," said Langsett. "She’s somebody’s mother, grandmother, she’s a friend to hundreds of people."

Langsett said that Hammontre and her husband lived for a time in San Diego while they were both treated for cancer before moving back to San Felipe.

Langsett said for her friend to survive cancer -- only to get lost in the desert -- is unimaginable.

"We're running short on time we need to give the family hope, hope has no border," said Langsett.

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