A man in Florida fell into a sinkhole that suddenly opened up on Thursday beneath his bedroom.
CNN reported that a fire department spokesperson said that the man from Tampa called out to his brother as he fell into the hole.
"I heard a loud crash, like a car coming through the house," the man's brother, Jeremy Bush, said to CNN affiliate 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."
Jeremy tried to save his brother Jeff Bush standing in the hole and digging with a shovel until police came and pulled Jeremy out as the floor was still collapsing.
"When he got there, there was no bedroom left," Hillsborough County Fire Rescue spokeswoman Jessica Damico said to The Los Angeles Times. "There was no furniture. All he saw was a piece of the mattress sticking up."
"I thought I heard him holler for me to help him," Jeremy added to CNN.
Jeremy and four other people escaped from the home but his brother may be dead after "monitoring equipment lowered by engineers detected no signs of life, said Jessica Damico, the Hillsborough County Fire Department spokeswoman," reported CNN. However it is too dangerous to go into the hole and check.
"We put engineering equipment into the sinkhole and didn't see anything compatible with life," Damico said to The Los Angeles Times.
The sinkhole is about 20 to 30 feet across and might be 30 feet deep, reported CNN.
Engineers arrived at the scene of the sinkhole and started to work to get measurements on how wide and deep it is.
Janell Wheeler said to the Tampa Bay Times that she was in the house with four adults, a child and two dogs when the sinkhole opened up out of nowhere.
She said, "It sounded like a car hit my house." Her nephew is the one that fell into the hole.
"It was dark. She remembered screams and one of her nephews rushing to rescue his brother, trapped in the debris," reported The LA Times.
"I just want my nephew," she said to The LA Times.
CNN reported that "many sinkholes form when acidic rainwater dissolves limestone or similar rock beneath the soil, leaving a large void that collapses when it's no longer able to support the weight of what's above, whether that be an open field, a road or a house. These are called "cover-collapse sinkholes," and it would appear this is what's happening in Florida, where the ground beneath the home suddenly gave way."
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