Authorities are concerned that a grandmother, who went missing while searching for her cat, may have fallen into a newly formed sinkhole in Marguerite, a village in western Pennsylvania.
Sixty-four-year-old Elizabeth Pollard’s family reported her missing early Tuesday after she had not returned home since she left on Monday evening to look for her cat, Pepper. Her vehicle was located near Union Restaurant, approximately 40 miles (65 kilometers) east of Pittsburgh, with her 5-year-old granddaughter safely inside.
Search teams deployed a pole camera equipped with a sensitive listening device into the sinkhole on Tuesday morning, but it detected no signs of Pollard. A second camera, however, uncovered what appeared to be a shoe, raising concerns about her fate.
Witnesses, including hunters and restaurant staff, had not noticed the sinkhole prior to Pollard’s disappearance, suggesting it may have opened recently. Authorities are actively using an excavator to dig around the area where temperatures have plunged below freezing overnight.
The young girl reportedly fell asleep in the car and woke up alone, realizing her grandmother had not returned. She remained in the vehicle until rescuers arrived to help her. The whereabouts of Pepper, the cat, remain unknown.
Trooper Steve Limani indicated that the shoe was found approximately 30 feet (9 meters) beneath the surface, speculating that the sinkhole may have formed just as Pollard was standing on it. Pollard lived just across the street from where her car was found.
Pleasant Valley Volunteer Fire Company Chief John Bacha expressed hope during the search, stating, “We are pretty confident we are in the right place. We’re hoping there is still a void she could be in.”
Authorities noted that sinkholes are not uncommon in the area, often due to subsidence from previous coal mining activities. A team from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection has been on-site to investigate further. They believe the underground cavity is likely linked to work done in the Marguerite Mine, which ceased operations in 1952. In this region, the Pittsburgh coal seam lies about 20 feet (6 meters) below the surface.
Neil Shader, a spokesperson for the Department of Environmental Protection, revealed that the state’s Bureau of Abandoned Mine Reclamation will assess the sinkhole once the search for Pollard concludes to determine if it was indeed a result of mining subsidence.
