Rescuers Search for Body of Six-Year-Old Girl Swept Away in Pennsylvania Creek

The rescue effort for a six-year-old Pennsylvania girl who was swept away by a rushing creek is now a recovery mission, officials announced Sunday.

Lin’ajah Brooker was playing with another girl near Chester Creek when she seemingly slipped on mud and plunged into the water on Saturday, the Chester Fire Department said.

Though Fox News reports that multiple fire departments and the U.S. Coast Guard desperately searched for the child, she never turned up. 

Rescue officials have made the sad announcement that the search is now just for Lin’ajah’s body.

“We were always hopeful that we could find something, now there’s just without a doubt, once we had the sunlight on our side, and we’re able to do a much more thorough search, that it wasn’t going to be a rescue, it was going to be a recovery,” Chester Fire Commissioner John-Paul Shirley said Sunday afternoon.

The creek had swelled with rain water and was flowing at a quicker pace than usual when Lin’ajah fell in.

Chester Creek, located in the suburbs of Philadelphia, spills out into the Delaware River.

“She might have already been in the Delaware when we were just getting on scene,” Shirley said of how fast the water was moving.

The city’s mayor, Stefan Roots, said it was an “extremely sad day” for the community.

“Our wish today is that with our boats, out with our drones out, with the Coast Guard out that we can discover the body and bring closure very quickly,” Roots said to reporters.

Lin’ajah’s family told reporter Brian Sheehan with NBC Philadelphia that the girl’s younger sister, Lin’Yah, died on the same day five years ago when she was just three years old.

Loved ones and community members of the missing girl gathered at the creek on Sunday to pray for her to be found.