() – Rescuers are searching for a missing Pennsylvania grandmother who is believed to have fallen deep into a sinkhole while searching for her cat with her young granddaughter, authorities said.
Police received a phone call around 1 a.m. Tuesday from a relative of Elizabeth Pollard, who said the 64-year-old woman had gone out to look for her cat on Monday afternoon and had not been heard from since. then, Trooper Steve Limani of the Pennsylvania State Police in Greensburg said at a news conference Tuesday.
Monday in Marguerite, an unincorporated area of Unity Township, Limani said, in a part of southwestern Pennsylvania dotted with former coal mines.
During the search, police discovered Pollard’s vehicle parked near a restaurant with his five-year-old granddaughter inside and a fresh, deep sinkhole just steps away.
“At that point we realized this could be a very bad situation,” Limani said.
Pollard’s granddaughter was unharmed, despite being in the car for nearly 12 hours in subfreezing temperatures, Limani said.
The girl is now with her parents and could not give police any details about what happened, Limani said. “She was just a 5-year-old girl who was waiting in the car for her grandmother to come back.”
The sinkhole, which was about four to six meters from Pollard’s vehicle, appears to be the size of a manhole on the surface, but becomes much wider underground, making search and rescue efforts difficult, Limani said. .
According to authorities, the sinkhole probably appeared sometime on Monday. “That hole wasn’t there before… It’s close enough to the building that someone would have seen it,” Limani said.
Pleasant Valley Volunteer Fire Chief John Bacha said he took an initial look at the hole using a ladder and harness, but did not see Pollard.
We couldn’t even get close enough to the hole because of the way it was undermined,” Bacha said.
“Many of the surrounding small towns are former mining towns,” Bacha added. “It is very common to find many mines in these areas, it is obviously worrying that there are problems with mine subsidence.”
Specialized rescue teams and excavation teams were mobilized to assist with the search, officials said.
Although monitoring equipment did not pick up any sounds, rescuers detected a shoe in the sinkhole using a camera, Bacha said.
“Let’s just say it’s a modern shoe, not something you’d find in a coal mine in Marguerite in 1940.”
Rescuers hope Pollard is trapped in the void, Bacha said, noting that the hole still has plenty of oxygen and is warmer than outside temperatures.
Search efforts will continue through Wednesday night, Limani said.
“Let’s be honest, we need to have a little luck.”
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