3 police officers, 2 suspects rescued from Monessen hillside following evening police chase

Three police officers and two suspects were rescued from a Monessen hillside after a police pursuit on Sunday evening.

Westmoreland County dispatchers said the police pursuit ended in what was referred to as a large-scale rescue operation.

It all started around 4:30 p.m. on Sunday.

Monessen police started pursuing a vehicle that had been reported stolen out of Charleroi with three juveniles in it.

At one point, the juveniles ditched the car, and then took off running, one going one way, and the other two racing though a neighborhood and going down a 600-foot slope just off Dennis Avenue.

Police chased the two suspects over the hill and caught them at the bottom of the ravine, but that's when the police called the fire department for help getting out and back up the steep slope.

"The fire chief recommended and decided to go with the rope rescue aspect of it, the technical rescue," said Monessen Police Chief David Yuhasz. "And that's when everyone came out. We had resources from the other side of this county, Allegheny County, Fayette County, Washington County; they all came to us."

Crews cut a path down into the ravine with chain saws and, one by one, slowly began to extract those who were stuck.

Chief Yuhasz says everyone was banged up, but OK. 

Exposure to the elements was everyone's chief concern, but both the officers and the suspects were evaluated at a local hospital and are said to be doing fine.

"It is a fortunate, unfortunate, type thing," said Chief Yuhasz. "Where in one aspect, if you look at it, if the officer didn't pursue those people into the woods, if they went into the woods and we didn't know, they might still be in the woods at this point, who's to say? In my eyes, it is kind of fortunate that they did pursue them into the woods where we could locate them eventually, and they were able to extract them from this area."

Officials told KDKA that at least one suspect was taken to the hospital and that one police officer went to the hospital with an eye injury.

Chief Yuhasz says this is an ongoing investigation, and they are working to locate the one juvenile who got away.