Conditions in abandoned mine are too dangerous for crew searching for Pennsylvania woman

UNITY TOWNSHIP, Pa. (AP) — The team looking for a missing Pennsylvania grandmother believed to have fallen into a sinkhole has determined that an abandoned coal mine is too unstable for people to safely search underground, authorities said Wednesday while still expressing hope Elizabeth Pollard will be found alive.

Emergency crews and others have been trying to locate Pollard, 64, for two days. Her relatives reported her missing early Tuesday and her vehicle with her unharmed 5-year-old granddaughter inside was found about two hours later, near what is thought to be a freshly opened sinkhole above the long closed, crumbling mine.

Authorities said in a noon update that the roof of the mine has collapsed in several places and is not stable. The sinkhole is in the village of Marguerite, about 40 miles (65 kilometers) east of Pittsburgh.

“We did get, you know, where we wanted, where we thought that she was at. We’ve been to that spot,” said Pleasant Unity Fire Chief John Bacha, the incident’s operations officer. “What happened at that point, I don’t know, maybe the slurry of mud pushed her one direction. There were several different seams of that mine, shafts that all came together where this happened at.”

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Trooper Cliff Greenfield said crews were still actively searching for Pollard.

“We are hopeful that she’s found alive,” Greenfield said.

Searchers were using electronic devices and cameras as surface digging continued with the use of heavy equipment, Bacha said. Search dogs may also be used.

On Wednesday afternoon, machinery was removing material from the area around the hole while police and other government vehicles blocked a clear view of the scene.

Sinkholes occur in the area because of subsidence from coal mining activity. Rescuers had been using water to break down and remove clay and dirt from the mine, which has been closed since the 1950s, but that increased the risk “for potential other mine subsidence to take place,” Pennsylvania State Police spokesperson Trooper Steve Limani said.

Crews lowered a pole camera with a sensitive listening device into the hole, but it detected nothing. Another camera lowered into the hole showed what could be a shoe about 30 feet (9 meters) below the surface, Limani said. Searchers have also deployed drones and thermal imaging equipment, to no avail.

Marguerite Fire Chief Scot Graham, the incident commander, said access to the immediate area surrounding the hole was being tightly controlled and monitored, with rescuers attached by harness.

“We cannot judge as to what’s going on underneath us. Again, you had a small hole on top but as soon as you stuck a camera down through to look, you had this big void,” Graham said. “And it was all different depths. The process is long, is tedious. We have to make sure that we are keeping safety in the forefront as well as the rescue effort.”

Bacha said they were “hoping that there’s a void that she could still be in.”

Pollard’s family called police at about 1 a.m. Tuesday to say she had not been seen since going out at about 5 p.m. Monday to search for Pepper, her cat. The temperature dropped well below freezing that night.

Her son, Axel Hayes, said Pollard is a happy woman who likes going out to have fun. She and her husband adopted Hayes and his twin brother when they were infants.

Hayes called Pollard “a great person overall, a great mother” who “never really did anybody wrong.”

He said at one point Pollard had about 10 cats.

“Every cat that she’s ever come in contact with, she has a close bond with them,” Hayes said.

His mother worked for many years at Walmart but recently was not employed, he said.

“I’m just hoping right now that she’s still with us and she’s able to come back to us,” he said.

Police said they found Pollard’s car parked behind Monday’s Union Restaurant in Marguerite, about 20 feet (6 meters) from the sinkhole.

Hunters and restaurant workers in the area said they had not noticed the manhole-size opening in the hours before Pollard disappeared, leading rescuers to speculate that the sinkhole was new.

“It almost feels like it opened up with her standing on top of it,” Limani said.

Searchers accessed the mine late Tuesday afternoon and dug a separate entrance out of concern that the ground around the sinkhole opening was not stable.

“Let’s be honest, we need to get a little bit lucky, right?” Limani said Wednesday. “We need a little bit of luck on our side. We need a little bit of God’s good blessing on our side.”

Pollard lives in a small neighborhood across the street from where her car and granddaughter were located, Limani said.

The young girl “nodded off in the car and woke up. Grandma never came back,” Limani said. The child stayed in the car until two troopers rescued her.

It’s not clear what happened to Pepper.

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Scolforo reported from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Kathy McCormack in New Hampshire and Sarah Brumfield in Maryland contributed to this report.