The Philadelphia Medical Examiner confirmed Saturday that the remains found in the Delaware River near Port Richmond Friday night are Mattie Sheils, 2, who died when she vanished in flash floodwaters in Upper Makefield on July 15.
Her 9-month-old brother, Conrad, remains missing, township police said on its Facebook page.
“Philadelphia Police Marine Unit and the United States Coast Guard are continuing to search the Delaware River south of the Betsy Ross Bridge. We so desperately want to bring Conrad home and are praying that we can find him,” the statement said.
The statement did not say if a search will continue on Sunday along Houghs Creek, where the disaster unfolded, or if the focus now turns to the river.
Conrad is the last of the flood victims missing. Six others are accounted for, including his mother, Katie Seley, 32, who died with the five other motorists as roiling floodwaters swamped the 1000 block of Washington Crossing Road, state Route 532. Police confirmed that the baby was not in his car seat when his mother took him from the car to escape fast-rising waters.
The announcement that Mattie had been found came at a news conference late Friday. Upper Makefield fire Chief Tim Brewer said Philadelphia police received two anonymous phone calls two minutes apart shortly after 5 p.m. reporting a body in the Delaware River.
The second call provided a description of the child and a location in the water south of the Betsy Ross Bridge, Brewer said. Police responded to the area and removed the child from debris against a pier in the area of a waste disposal plant, 32 miles south of Upper Makefield.
A Philadelphia Fire Department medical unit waiting nearby pronounced the child dead at the scene at 5:30 p.m.
“This has been an emotional time for the community,” Brewer added. “All our hearts are broken this evening.”
Crews continue search for Conrad Sheils
On Friday, Brewer repeated his privacy request for the Seley-Sheils family as they process everything that has happened over the past seven “tumultuous days.”
“We cannot begin to fathom the pain they’re experiencing but we will never leave their sides as they deal with this tragedy,” Brewer added.
The fire chief, who has been the public face of the unprecedented search and recovery efforts, also thanked the public for its outpouring of support, love and concern for the survivors, victims and first responders who have worked nonstop since 5:30 p.m. July 15.
“Your words of encouragement, your efforts to help all have been expressed and have never gone unheard and has touched us all,” Brewer said.
The discovery in the Delaware River happened nearly the same time searchers in Upper Makefield wrapped up operations Friday with no luck finding Mattie Conrad. The flooding and deaths stunned the county. A memorial service was held last Thursday at the Washington Crossing Methodist Church, and a second memorial service for the victims will be held at 7 p.m.Sunday at the Garden of Reflection, 1950 Woodside Road in Lower Makefield.
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How did Mattie Sheils end up in the Delaware River?
For a young child to travel more than 30 miles downriver is unusual “but certainly possible,” according to Gerry Dworkin, an aquatics safety and water rescue technical consultant with Lifesaving Resources, a Kennebunkport, Maine, company that trains and supports lifeguard, public safety and rescue personnel internationally.
Children are physically lighter and have less muscle mass, which makes them more buoyant meaning they can be carried further, Dworkin said.
“They can float for very long distances,” he added.
Young children, like Mattie and Conrad, are also at a higher risk for hypothermia, even during the summer months, Dworkin added. A child can lose body temperature rapidly even in 70-degree water for an hour.
At one point over the last week, more than 100 searchers in Upper Makefield have concentrated on a 40-acre area south of Washington Crossing Road. Weather conditions Wednesday and Thursday slowed search efforts.
The children slipped out of the arms of their mother and grandmother after the four were swept away in fast-moving floodwaters after Houghs Creek overflowed as a result of up to 6 inches of rain in two hours.
In addition to Mattie and her mother, four others drowned in the catastrophic flooding. Seley’s fiancé, Jim Sheils, and the couple’s 4-year-old son, Jack, were rescued by firefighters.
Seley’s mother, Dahlia Galindez, 62, also of Charleston, South Carolina, survived being dragged into the water and found help at a nearby home on Stonebridge Crossing Road.
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The couple were visiting Sheils’ family, who live in Newtown Township, when their vehicle was one of 11 caught up in what witnesses and survives described as a wall of water that crashed downhill from Houghs Creek, a tributary of the Delaware River.
Saturday morning, Upper Makefield police posted an update with a note from the family:
“The Sheils family would like to express their continued gratitude for the overwhelming outpouring of love, support, and concern from the community and from people around the country as rescue workers have worked tirelessly to find Mattie and Conrad. We are grateful that our little Mattie has been brought home to us. We are still praying for the return of Conrad. Thank you all, again, for your compassion and your kindness. We are humbled.”
How many people were swept into the water?
In total, 19 people on Washington Crossing Road were caught in the violent currents; a dozen survived including Galindez and David Love, husband of Yuko Love, 64.
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Love, Enzo and Linda DePiero, 78, and 74 respectively, and Susan Barnhart, 53, of Titusville, New Jersey, perished in the waters and they were found Saturday and Sunday along with Seley.
Since Saturday, Upper Makefield first responders had searched night and day for the missing Sheils children, the last of the unaccounted-for victims.
A search and rescue operation like never seen before included drones, air, ground and water resources including sonar, divers and dogs. Equipment and personnel were recruited from Central New Jersey and as far south as Delaware and Chester counties to aid the search.
Photos of family taken by floodsSouth Carolina family torn apart by Upper Makefield fatal floods identified
