Ten years on, a grieving brother is still haunted by the devastating night his sibling vanished without a trace, swallowed alive by the Earth beneath their Floride home.
On March 1, 2013, 37-year-old Jeffrey Bush was asleep in his bedroom in Seffner, just outside Tampa, when a massive sinkhole, 20 feet wide and over 100 feet deep, opened up beneath him without warning.
In a terrifying moment no one could have predicted, the ground gave way beneath the house, pulling Jeff down with it. He was never seen again.
Sinkholes are natural geological phenomena that can form when rainwater, made slightly acidic by carbon dioxide, seeps into the ground and dissolves soft rocks like limestone. Over time, the ground above can collapse, sometimes catastrophically, explains the National geographic.
But for Jeffrey’s family, this wasn’t a geological curiosity. It was the night everything changed.
His brother Jeremy Bush rushed to the scene that night and found the bedroom gone. What he saw has never left him.
“I opened up the door and there was a big hole there,” Jeremy recalled in an emotional interview with Fox13 a decade later. “His bed, dresser, everything was gone. He was gone.”
Without hesitation, Jeremy jumped in.
“I jumped in the hole immediately… started digging because I heard him yelling for me… ‘Jeremy, please help me,’” he said.
Despite his desperate attempts, he couldn’t save Jeff. His brother’s body was never recovered.
Now, 10 years on, Jeremy still returns to the site, because it’s the only place he has to visit his brother. The sinkhole has reopened twice since that night; once in 2015, and again in 2023, ABC reports.
“Not a day goes by that I don’t think about my brother,” he told the outlet. “Stuff that happened in that house that night… hearing my brother yell and scream for me to help him, I hear it all the time.”
“It’s hard seeing the hole back open again,” he added.
The most recent collapse caused renewed concern for the community. Officials moved quickly to fill it with a 150-ton mix of gravel and water. The site remains cordoned off, sealed by two fences, and access is restricted. Thankfully, no one was hurt during the later incidents.
Back in 2013,Hillsborough country bought the neighboring property to prevent any future risks to residents. The sinkhole’s unpredictable nature means officials are keeping a close eye on it, even as they assure nearby families that they’re safe.
But for Jeremy, the hole in the ground is more than a geological hazard, it’s a painful reminder of the night he lost his brother, and the tragedy that still echoes a decade later.
“It’s his last resting place,” he said quietly. “It’s all I’ve got.”
