Florida man swallowed by sinkhole

Florida man swallowed by sinkhole

LSFL/Splash News

A Tampa, Fla., home where a 20-foot-deep sinkhole consumed a man who was sleeping above it before it opened up has been closed off and the family is not allowed to return to the home. The man, Jeff Bush, is presumed dead.

A Tampa man is presumed dead after a gaping, 20-foot sinkhole opened up under his bed and swallowed him whole in a matter of seconds. 

The only thing visible by the time police arrived around 11 p.m. Thursday was a TV cable disappearing into the dirt-filled sinkhole. 

There was no sign of Jeff Bush, 37, who’d been in his bedroom in the one-story house he shared with five family members outside Tampa. 

Police lowered equipment into the 20-foot-wide and 20-foot-deep crater Friday to search for Bush’s body, with no luck. 

His brother Jeremy, who also lived in the house, had tried frantically to rescue Bush from the sinkhole, even as it threatened another cave in. 

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“I heard a loud crash, like a car coming through the house,” Jeremy Bush told local station WFTS. “I heard my brother screaming and I ran back there and tried going inside his room, but my old lady turned the light on and all I seen was this big hole, a real big hole, and all I saw was his mattress.” 

He rushed to the hole with a shovel and tried desperately to move the rubble until police arrived and hauled him out. 

The floor was still collapsing around him, Jeremy Bush said. 

“I didn’t care. I wanted to save my brother,” he said through tears Friday in a neighbor’s yard. “But I just couldn’t do nothing.” He added: “I could swear I heard him hollering my name to help him.” Jeremy Bush and four other people, including a 2-year-old child, escaped. 

Rescuers started searching moments after Bush disappeared but found no signs of life, officials said. 

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A dresser and the TV set also vanished down the hole, along with most of the bed. 

A lone corner of Bush’s mattress was still visible, sticking up above the swampy mess. 

“All I could see was the cable wire running from the TV going down into the hole. I saw a corner of the bed and a corner of the box spring and the frame of the bed,” Jeremy Bush said. 

Officials deemed the house “seriously unstable” Friday night. They said the hole was continuing to grow, in part because of the soft soil around the home. 

The family is not allowed to return home because another collapse could occur, said county administrator Mike Merrill. 

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Sinkholes are so common in Florida that state law requires home insurers to provide coverage against the danger. 

Jeremy Bush said someone came out to the home a couple of months ago to check for sinkholes and other things, apparently for insurance purposes. 

“He said there was nothing wrong with the house. Nothing. And a couple of months later, my brother dies. In a sinkhole,” he said. 

The brothers worked maintenance jobs, including picking up trash along highways. 

The small, sky-blue house, built in 1974, might have to be destroyed, he said. 

With News Wire Services 

gotis@nydailynews.com