Grandmother found dead after falling into sinkhole while searching for missing cat
An elderly woman was discovered lifeless in a sinkhole days after she was believed to have fallen into the pit while searching for her cat.
According to a report by CNN, Pennsylvania State Police spokesperson Trooper Steve Limani said that they found 64-year-old grandmother Elizabeth Pollard lying dead in an abandoned mine that was exposed by the sinkhole.
Police had to use heavy machinery to recover her body from the mine, which was already beginning to collapse due to being deserted for a long time.
They have informed Pollard's family about what happened.
"The family kept telling us, ‘We really want to have the body back so we can lay her to rest.' As a group, we just really wanted to make sure that we were able to do that," Limani said.
According to him, Pollard's body ended up "not far away from where we believe that she’d been when she fell through the sinkhole." He noted that it was "just a matter of the work to remove all the dirt."
Pollard was first reported missing by one of her relatives when she couldn't be contacted after she and her five-year-old granddaughter left her so she could look for her missing cat last Monday.
While her granddaughter was eventually found sitting in the car for 12 hours unharmed, the elderly woman was nowhere to be seen. But police did find a newly opened sinkhole just a few steps behind, sparking a massive rescue mission for Pollard.
Authorities had to be careful as the underground landscape was fragile and dangerous. The news outlet detailed that rescuers pumped water through the mine to clear out debris, then removing it with a vacuum to make it easier to see what was below.
When cameras and sound detection equipment failed to detect any sign of life by Wednesday evening, that was when police lost hope that Pollard could still be retrieved alive.
Citing data from the US Geological Survey, the news outlet reported that Pennsylvania is "particularly prone to sinkhole damage" due to its limestone bedrock.
