PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) -- Authorities in Bucks County are calling off the search for missing 9-month-old Conrad Sheils. Upper Makefield Township police posted a statement on Facebook on Wednesday afternoon saying that they have exhausted all means of locating the baby.
Emergency personnel have conducted an exhaustive search effort since a flash flood in Washington Crossing, Bucks County, on July 15 swept away several people.
Hundreds of search personnel have helped in the search, including divers and K-9 teams who checked creeks in the area as well as the islands and banks along the Delaware River. Officials said they used drones, sonar, boats and more to try to locate the baby boy.
Seven lives were lost in the flood, according to the Upper Makefield Township Police Department, including Conrad's mother, 32-year-old Katie Seley, and his 2-year-old sister, Matilda. Sadly, only six people now have been returned to their families.
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In the hours after the flood, authorities found and identified Seley; husband and wife Enzo De Pietro, 78, and Linda De Piero, 74, of Newtown; Uko Love, 64, of Newtown; and Susan Barnhart, 53, of Titusville, New Jersey.
Matilda's body was located on Friday in the water near Port Richmond, Philadelphia, about 30 miles from where she went missing.
Seley, her mother, her fiance Jim Sheils, and their three children were visiting from South Carolina and on their way to a barbecue in Bucks County when their car got stuck on Washington Crossing Road in fast-rising waters. Sheils took 4-year-old son Jack and made it to safety. Matilda and Conrad went with their mother and grandmother, and all four were swept away in the flood.
Only the grandmother, Dahlia Galindez, was found alive. At a community memorial on Sunday, she shared her chilling account of the rapid floodwaters.
"We get out of the car. The water is up to my shin. I took a few steps and I was swept under the guardrail, along with my daughter Katie and our grandchildren," she said. "As I got into the water and [was] pulled under, I was eventually able to hold onto a tree, and I think that was my only injury, miraculously enough."
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