San Diego

Abe Rillos Gutierrez, 53, a San Diego Tribune copy editor who had been missing for more than a week, was in critical condition Tuesday night at Scripps Memorial Hospital in Chula Vista.

Gutierrez was taken by paramedics to the hospital at 11:45 a.m. Tuesday, suffering from low blood pressure and anemia, according to Diane Yohe, a spokeswoman for the hospital.

Yohe said the owner of the San Diego Inn Motel called police after he went to Gutierrez’s room to collect two days’ rent and found him semiconscious.

Gutierrez, who has worked for the Tribune since 1971 and told his employers in July that he lives in Tijuana hotels, had not been at the newspaper since Nov. 3, when he worked his scheduled shift, said police spokesman Bill Robinson. Gutierrez called in sick the evening before the next day’s shift, as well as Nov. 5, the day before he was scheduled to work again, Robinson said.

Yohe said that, after Gutierrez was taken to the hospital, doctors quickly “gave him blood transfusions and got his blood pressure up and stabilized him. But he had suffered a severe loss of bodily fluids, and his condition is still critical.”