Sinkhole in Pennsylvania probably swallowed missing grandmother, police say
A woman who went missing while looking for her cat was likely swallowed by a sinkhole, authorities have said.
Elizabeth Pollard vanished after leaving with her granddaughter to search for her pet on Monday evening in Pennsylvania, but her family alerted authorities when she had not returned by the early hours of Tuesday.
The 64-year-old’s vehicle was found with her unharmed five-year-old granddaughter inside around two hours later near a freshly opened sinkhole above a long-closed, crumbling mine.
But police say the search operation has now turned into a recovery effort, after two treacherous days of digging through mud and rock produced no signs of life.
Elizabeth Pollard. Pic: Pennsylvania State Police
The top of the sinkhole that Ms Pollard is believed to have fallen into. Pic: AP
Pennsylvania State Police spokesperson Trooper Steve Limani said authorities no longer believed they would find Ms Pollard alive, but that work to find her remains continued.
“Unless it’s a miracle, most likely this is a recovery,” he said.
There has been no signs of any form of life or anything to make rescuers think they should continue the search effort, he said, noting that oxygen levels below ground were insufficient.
“We feel like we failed. It’s tough.”
He praised the crews who went into the abandoned mine to help remove material during the search for Ms Pollard in the village of Marguerite, around 40 miles east of Pittsburgh.
The search operation continued through the night. Pic: AP
Authorities had said earlier that the roof of the mine had collapsed in several places and was not stable.
“We did get, you know, where we wanted, where we thought that she was at. We’ve been to that spot,” Pleasant Unity Fire chief John Bacha, the incident’s operations officer, said.
“What happened at that point, I don’t know, maybe the slurry of mud pushed her in one direction. There were several different seams of that mine, shafts that all came together where this happened.”
Geological engineer Paul Santi, a professor at the Colorado School of Mines, said the chances of Ms Pollard surviving if she slipped into the sinkhole were “pretty small.”
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“I would be surprised if she came through this OK,” he said.
“It would require that she wasn’t killed by the fall, she wasn’t killed by the rock, that there was an air pocket and she’s able to survive in it.”
Sinkholes occur regularly in the area because of subsidence from coal mining activity.
Mr Limani said the searchers met with Ms Pollard’s family before announcing the shift from rescue to recovery.
“I think they get it,” he said.
Ms Pollard’s son, Axel Hayes, described her as a happy woman who at one point owned 10 cats. She and her husband adopted Mr Hayes and his twin brother when they were infants.
He called her “a great person overall, a great mother” who “never really did anybody wrong.”
Donald Trump has said he is considering “taking away” the US citizenship of actress and comedian Rosie O’Donnell, despite a Supreme Court ruling that expressly prohibits a government from doing so.
In a post on Truth Social on Saturday, the US president said: “Because of the fact that Rosie O’Donnell is not in the best interests of our Great Country, I am giving serious consideration to taking away her Citizenship.”
He also labelled O’Donnell, who has moved to Ireland, as a “threat to humanity” and said she should “remain in the wonderful country of Ireland, if they want her”.
O’Donnell responded on Instagram by posting a photograph of Mr Trump with Jeffrey Epstein.
“You are everything that is wrong with America and I’m everything you hate about what’s still right with it,” she wrote in the caption.
“I’m not yours to silence. I never was.”
Rosie O’Donnell moved to Ireland after Donald Trump secured a second term. Pic: AP
O’Donnell moved to Ireland with her 12-year-old son in January after Mr Trump had secured a second term.
She has said she’s in the process of obtaining Irish citizenship based on family lineage and that she would only return to the US “when it is safe for all citizens to have equal rights there in America”.
O’Donnell and the US president have criticised each other publicly for years, in an often-bitter back-and-forth that predates Mr Trump’s move into politics.
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This is just the latest threat by the president to revoke the citizenship of someone he has disagreed with, most recently his former ally Elon Musk.
But the two situations are different as while Musk was born in South Africa, O’Donnell was born in the US and has a constitutional right to American citizenship.
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Amanda Frost, a law professor at the University of Virginia School of Law, said the Supreme Court ruled in a 1967 case that the fourteenth amendment of the constitution prevents the government from taking away citizenship.
“The president has no authority to take away the citizenship of a native-born US citizen,” he added.
“In short, we are nation founded on the principle that the people choose the government; the government cannot choose the people.”
A farmer who fell from a greenhouse roof during an anti-immigrant raid at a licensed cannabis facility in California this week has died of his injuries.
Jaime Alanis, 57, is the first person to die as a result of Donald Trump’s Immigration Compliance and Enforcement (ICE) raids.
His niece, Yesenia Duran, posted on the fundraising site GoFundMe to say her uncle was his family’s only provider and he had been sending his earnings back to his wife and daughter in Mexico.
The United Food Workers said Mr Alanis had worked on the farm for 10 years.
“These violent and cruel federal actions terrorise American communities, disrupt the American food supply chain, threaten lives and separate families,” the union said in a recent statement on X.
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The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said it executed criminal search warrants at Glass House Farms facilities on Thursday.
Mr Alanis called family to say he was hiding and possibly fleeing agents before he fell around 30ft (9m) from the roof and broke his neck, according to information from family, hospital and government sources.
Agents arrested 200 people suspected of being in the country illegally and identified at least 10 immigrant children on the sites, the DHS said in a statement.
Mr Alanis was not among them, the agency said.
“This man was not in and has not been in CBP (Customs and Border Protection) or ICE custody,” DHS assistant secretary for public affairs Tricia McLaughlin said.
“Although he was not being pursued by law enforcement, this individual climbed up to the roof of a greenhouse and fell 30ft. CBP immediately called a medivac to the scene to get him care as quickly as possible.”
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Four US citizens were arrested during the incident for allegedly “assaulting or resisting officers”, the DHS said, and authorities were offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of a person suspected of firing a gun at federal agents.
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In a statement, Glass House, a licensed Cannabis grower, said immigration agents had valid warrants. It said workers were detained and it is helping provide them with legal representation.
“Glass House has never knowingly violated applicable hiring practices and does not and has never employed minors,” it added.
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