UNITY TOWNSHIP, Pensilvania, EE.UU. (AP) — La búsqueda de una mujer que se cree cayó en un socavón en el oeste de Pensilvania se ha convertido en un esfuerzo de recuperación después de dos días traicioneros de excavar en lodo y rocas sin dejar señales de vida, informaron las autoridades el miércoles.
El equipo que trabaja para encontrar a Elizabeth Pollard, de 64 años, empacó el miércoles por la noche y planeaba regresar el jueves por la mañana.
El portavoz de la Policía Estatal de Pensilvania, Steve Limani, dijo durante una conferencia de prensa que las autoridades ya no creen que encontrarán a Pollard con vida, pero que el trabajo para encontrar sus restos continúa.
«No hemos tenido señales de ninguna forma de vida ni nada» que haga pensar a los rescatistas que deben «seguir tratando de empujar y apresurarse y empujar los límites, ser agresivos con el potencial de arriesgar daños a otras personas», dijo Limani. Señaló que los niveles de oxígeno bajo tierra eran insuficientes.
Los equipos de emergencia y otros han estado tratando de localizar a Pollard durante dos días. Sus familiares reportaron su desaparición la madrugada del martes, y su vehículo con su nieta de 5 años ilesa adentro fue encontrado unas dos horas después, cerca de lo que se cree que es un socavón recién abierto sobre una mina cerrada y desmoronada desde hace mucho tiempo.
«Sentimos que hemos fracasado», dijo Limani sobre la decisión de cambiar el estado del esfuerzo de rescate a recuperación. «Es difícil».
Limani praised the crews who went into the abandoned mine to help remove material in the search for Pollard in the village of Marguerite, about 40 miles (65 kilometers) east of Pittsburgh.
“They would come out of there head to toe covered in mud, exhausted. And while they were getting pulled up, the next group’s getting dropped in. And there was one after the next after the next,” Limani said.
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 earlier Wednesday. “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.”
Searchers were using electronic devices and cameras as surface digging continued with the use of heavy equipment, Bacha said. In the coming days, they plan to greatly widen the surface hole, with winter weather forecast in the region.
Geological engineer Paul Santi said the chances of Pollard surviving if she slipped into the sinkhole were “pretty small.”
“There’s a lot of problems,” said Santi, a professor at the Colorado School of Mines. “There’s rock and soil and things that could have buried her. There is water that could have filled it. You have to go through with the rescue. But I would be surprised if she came through this OK … 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 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.
Crews had 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 Tuesday. Searchers also deployed drones and thermal imaging equipment to no avail.
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.
Limani said the searchers met with her family before announcing the shift from rescue to recovery. “I think they get it,” Limani said.
Pollard’s son, Axel Hayes, described her as a happy woman who liked going out to have fun. She and her husband adopted Hayes and his twin brother when they were infants. She used to work at Walmart but recently was not employed.
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.
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.
Pollard lived in a small neighborhood across the street from where her car and granddaughter were found by state police. It’s unclear what happened to the cat.
