Sinkhole swallows woman in front yard — then her rescuers fall in too, NY cops say

Three older adults were swallowed by a sinkhole in a front yard in New York, police said.

Police responded to a home in Huntington, Long Island, early in the morning on Jan. 26 after they received a report of a woman in a hole in the ground, according to a statement from the Suffolk County Police Department.

The woman, 71, tumbled into the hole as she was leaving her house to head to work, according to NBC New York. As she walked across her yard in the dark, the ground beneath her suddenly opened up.

Two people rushed over to help, but they also fell into the hole, per NBC and CBS New York.

When officers arrived at the scene, they found all three individuals “stuck in a hole measuring approximately six feet wide by six feet deep,” police said.

With the help of a bystander, one officer hoisted one of the three to safety.

A second officer got a ladder from a neighbor and lowered it into the hole, allowing the two others to climb out, police said.

Two of the individuals, both in their sixties or seventies, were taken to a nearby hospital for evaluation, and the other was not injured.

A town building inspector is expected to survey the property and determine what might have caused the hole, police said.

Sinkholes typically originate when bedrock is dissolved by water, creating open spaces under the surface, according to the United States Geological Survey.

“Florida, Texas, Alabama, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Pennsylvania are most sinkhole-prone,” according to the American Geosciences Institute.

This story was originally published January 27, 2023 at 12:36 PM with the headline "Sinkhole swallows woman in front yard — then her rescuers fall in too, NY cops say."