Summary
Elizabeth Pollard, a 64-year-old Pennsylvania grandmother, was found dead 30 feet below the surface after falling into a sinkhole connected to a decades-old mine shaft while searching for her cat.
The four-day search shifted from rescue to recovery as hopes of finding her alive diminished. Pollard’s car was discovered nearby with her 5-year-old granddaughter inside, unharmed despite freezing temperatures.
Authorities plan to stabilize the area to prevent future sinkhole incidents, as abandoned mines pose ongoing risks in southwestern Pennsylvania.
This is such a terrifying and sad way to go. Just looking for her cat. Probably trying to bring it inside to be warm since it is winter out.
Sinkholes are such a sneaky and unexpectedly scary thing. There are so many horrors mother nature can throw at us - earthquakes, tornados, tsunamis, wildfires. And yet, a small unseen hole in the ground can lead to a massive cavern.
As a father of little ones I’m rather grateful this isn’t a “grandmother falls in sinkhole while 5 year old child found dead in car” story. I get haunted by those fucked up stories.
I wonder if the cats ok… they can usually survive it there aren’t preditors like coyotes.
The headline says the cat was dead
I think the headline states the grandmother was found dead, after falling down a sinkhole while searching for her cat.
“cat found dead after 4 day search”
It’s badly worded. She fell in a sinkhole while looking for her cat. She was found dead after 4 days. The headline could have been clearer if they’d included the words “while” and “has been”. *Grandmother who fell down a sinkhole while looking for her cat has been found dead. *
The cat may be dead, but the headline doesn’t say so.
Whoah, whoah, whoah… cat OK?
Thanks for asking the important question.
If I died looking for my cat, I’d still want my cat to be okay.
How are they going to stabilize the area exactly?
Probably drive a lot of piles into the ground around it.
Piles of what??
Synonym of “pilings.” Long rods of material, not heaps of it. Like what you build to support a boat dock.
That said, I’m not so sure that pilings are the right solution there. That kind of foundation is used when the ground is muddy/unstable/subject to liquefaction – when it doesn’t always have good bearing strength, so they rely on friction against the sides of the piles to support the weight instead.
But when the ground has actual voids in it (karst topography, or in this case, a bunch of old mines), you’re just driving the pilings into air and there’s no friction to be found. I think it’s more likely they do try to fill at least the nearby part of the cavity with some substance, like concrete.
I’m trying to decide if you’re being funny or not.
If you have to try and decide, then I’m clearly not, regardless of my original intent.
Thanks for the read!
They’re not.
