February 28, 2013. Florida. A local man is believed to be dead after being swallowed by a sinkhole Thursday night, Feb. 28.
Jeffrey Bush, 36, was asleep in bed around 11 p.m. when the ground opened up beneath his home at 240 Faithway Dr., Seffner, and swallowed him. “It’s a movie scene behind there,” said County Sherriff Larry McKinnon. “That’s what it is.”
Bush’s mother was asleep in another room when she heard a loud crunching sound. When she rushed to her son’s room, she saw that the entire floor had caved in and her son was gone.
Bush’s younger brother, Jeremy, 34, said he could hear his brother screaming from inside the hole. He dove in, trying to find his brother as the hole continued caving in.
Deputy Douglas Duvall arrived on the scene and was able to grab Jeremy Bush before he was engulfed as well.
At a press conference, an emotional Jeremy Bush talked about his efforts to save his brother.
“We heard a loud crash. I ran in there. I heard my brother screaming. And I ran in there and all I could see was this big hole, all I could see was the top of his bed. I didn’t see anything else. So I jumped in the hole and tried digging him out. And I couldn’t get him out. All I could hear was him screaming, hollering for me. I couldn’t do nothing.”
Jeremy Bush said he didn’t think twice about risking his own life to help his brother. “I didn’t care. I just wanted my brother,” he said.
The family says the home has never had an issue with sinkholes. There were five people in the home at the time, including a 2-year-old child.
A sinkhole is a natural depression or hole in the Earth’s surface caused by the chemical dissolution of carbonate rocks or suffusion processes in sandstone. Sinkholes may vary in size from 1 to 600 metres both in diameter and depth, and vary in form from soil-lined bowls to bedrock-edged chasms. Sinkholes may be formed gradually or suddenly, and are found worldwide. (Associated Press)