A Southeast Portland woman tumbled down a 20-foot sinkhole in her backyard after she went looking for her dog Tuesday night, fire officials said.
At the bottom of the dark, cold pit the owner was reunited with her black poodle mix, which had fallen down the hole earlier in the evening, officials said.
A woman speaks with firefighters Tuesday night on Southeast 38th Avenue in Portland in front of a house where a sinkhole opened up in the back yard. The street was blocked off from Division Street past Clinton Street. The bizarre incident occurred just before 7:30 p.m. when the woman went looking for the dog in the backyard of her home in the 2700 block of Southeast 38th Avenue, said Lt. Rich Chatman, a Portland Fire and Rescue spokesman.
As she searched for her pet in the dark, she ended up at the bottom of the 3-foot-wide sinkhole, Chatman said.
Trapped 20 feet beneath the earth, the woman began shouting for help. Luckily, a passerby heard her cries and called 911, Chatman said.
Fire crews rushed to the scene. Using a rope, rescuers pulled the poodle out of the pit. They then used a ladder to extricate the woman out of the ground, Chatman said.
Neither suffered injuries in their respective falls, he said.
It was not immediately clear how the sinkhole formed, though it is possible it had been a former well or pit, Chatman said.
Shane Dixon Kavanaugh of the Oregonian contributed to this report.
-- Andre Meunier
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