Florida man swallowed by sinkhole believed dead
Video HERE
Florida man swallowed by sinkhole in his bedroom
HERE Saundra Amrhein, Reuters Friday, March 1, 2013 6:13:27 EST PM
Police tape surrounds a home where a sinkhole opened up and swallowed a man in Seffner, Florida on March 1, 2013. (REUTERS/Brian Blanco)
SEFFNER, Fla. – A Florida man was missing and feared dead on Friday after a sinkhole suddenly opened up under the bedroom of his suburban Tampa home, police and fire officials said.
Rescuers responded to a 911 call late on Thursday after the family of Jeff Bush, 36, reported hearing a loud crash in the house and rushed to his bedroom.
“All they could see was a part of a mattress sticking out of the hole,” said Hillsborough County Fire Rescue Chief Ron Rogers. “Essentially the floor of that room had opened up.”
A sheriff’s deputy rescued Bush’s brother, Jeremy, who had jumped into the sinkhole to try to find him. Three other adults and a 2-year-old child were in the house at the time the sinkhole opened up.
“I feel in my heart he didn’t make it,” Jeremy Bush, 35, told Tampa TV station WFTS. “There were six of us in the house, five got out.”
The entire household except Jeff Bush went out to eat ice cream on Thursday night and when they got home, Jeff was in his room sleeping. They were getting ready for bed when they heard a huge crash and Jeff screaming.
“It sounded like a car ran into the back of the house,” said Norman Wicker, 48, the father of Jeremy’s fiancDee who also lived in the house.
Jeremy jumped into the hole as Wicker ran to the shed for a shovel and flashlight. When he returned, Wicker said he yelled for Jeremy to get out but the brother furiously kept digging until a deputy arrived and pulled him out.
Authorities had not detected any signs of life after lowering listening devices and cameras into the hole and rescue efforts were suspended after the site was deemed too unsafe for emergency personnel to enter.
The evacuation of several nearby homes was ordered due to concerns the sinkhole was growing.
The Bush brothers worked together as landscapers, according to Leland Wicker, 48, one of the other residents of the house.
Fire Rescue spokeswoman Jessica Damico said the sinkhole appeared to be as wide as 30 feet (9 meters), 30-feet deep, and an estimated 100 feet (30 meters) wide down below.
“It started in the bedroom and it has been expanding outward and it’s taking the house with it as it opens up,” said Bill Bracken, the head of an engineering company assisting rescuers.
The risk of sinkholes is common in Florida due to the state’s porous geological bedrock, according to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. As rainwater filters down into the ground, it dissolves the rock causing erosion that can lead to underground caverns, which cause sinkholes when they collapse.
Florida suffered one of its worst sinkhole accidents in 1994 when a 15-story-deep chasm opened up east of Tampa at a phosphate mine. It created a hole 185 feet (56 meters) deep and as much as 160 feet (49 meters) wide. Locals dubbed it Disney World’s newest attraction – ’Journey to the Center of the Earth.’
In 1981 in Winter Park near Orlando, a sinkhole was measured as 320 feet wide (98 meters) and 90 feet (27 meters) deep, swallowing a two-story house, part of a Porsche dealership, and an Olympic-size swimming pool. The site is now an artificial lake in the city.
“Mortgage companies are more and more requiring Florida home buyers to have sinkhole coverage on their homeowners insurance policy,” said K.C. Williams a Tampa sinkhole and property damage claims lawyer who lives 2 miles away from the damaged home.
Anyone can join.
Anyone can contribute.
Anyone can become informed about their world.
"United We Stand" Click Here To Create Your Personal Citizen Journalist Account Today, Be Sure To Invite Your Friends.
Please Help Support BeforeitsNews by trying our Natural Health Products below!
Order by Phone at 888-809-8385 or online at https://mitocopper.com M - F 9am to 5pm EST
Order by Phone at 866-388-7003 or online at https://www.herbanomic.com M - F 9am to 5pm EST
Order by Phone at 866-388-7003 or online at https://www.herbanomics.com M - F 9am to 5pm EST
Humic & Fulvic Trace Minerals Complex - Nature's most important supplement! Vivid Dreams again!
HNEX HydroNano EXtracellular Water - Improve immune system health and reduce inflammation.
Ultimate Clinical Potency Curcumin - Natural pain relief, reduce inflammation and so much more.
MitoCopper - Bioavailable Copper destroys pathogens and gives you more energy. (See Blood Video)
Oxy Powder - Natural Colon Cleanser! Cleans out toxic buildup with oxygen!
Nascent Iodine - Promotes detoxification, mental focus and thyroid health.
Smart Meter Cover - Reduces Smart Meter radiation by 96%! (See Video).
Not buying it. B/S… Looking at the TV helicopter view there was no sinkhole on either side of the house. If it was directly underneath then the entire slab foundation, including re-bar, had to have fallen in along with the entire house because that guy wouldn’t of slipped through the re-bar. Then what is the clincher is you mean to tell me that the city workers would of come out on a Sunday (one or two days after the supposed incident) to demolish the house!!! Come on…on a SUNDAY?!? They would of taped it off until the following Monday to demolish the house AFTER the insurance adjuster and the city/county building inspector declared it uninhabitable and filed their reports. I just don’t see that all this is possible within a couple of days especially when the police still had to investigate the missing person report and to make sure that this wasn’t a crime scene.
B/S…
I guess if all this was a normal gulp of land … normality of work days would hold to schedule …and if the first gulp would have sucked in or collapsed in a perfect hole like the one penetrating foundation and all found under the bed of a family’s home found here;
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/blogpost/post/sinkhole-found-under-guatemalan-womans-bed/2011/07/21/gIQAw3ThRI_blog.html …
Then maybe the hole had not become visible to the outer barrier of the house in such an early stage of collapse …
But I will agree they acted very fast to cover the sinkhole up … I consider they’re covering up more than the sinkhole …