SEFFNER --
A sheriff's deputy plucked a man from an expanding sinkhole, but neither was able to save the man's brother from being sucked into the rubble, authorities said.
Early Friday, authorities said the site at 240 Faithway Drive had become too unstable to continue rescue efforts and the focus would instead shift to a recovery operation.
The sinkhole opened late Thursday in the home's backyard, swallowing one of the home's four bedrooms.
Someone called 911, and a deputy reportedly found Jeremy Bush trying to pull his brother, Jeffrey, out of the hole when he arrived.
The deputy pulled Jeremy from the growing hole.
But Jeffrey Bush, 36, disappeared into the rubble.
Janell Wheeler was inside the house with four other adults, a child and two dogs when the sinkhole opened. She sat huddled in a lawn chair Friday morning, covered in a green quilt.
"It sounded like a car hit my house," she said.
It was dark. She remembers screams and Jeremy rushing to rescue his brother.
The rest of the family went to a hotel late Thursday, when the house was condemned and neighbors evacuated. But she stayed behind with her dog Baby Girl, sleeping in her Ford Focus.
"I just want my nephew," she said through tears.
Family members returned to the home around 7:30 a.m. Jeremy Bush leaned on a patrol car and cried, his chin shaking as his eyes filled with tears.
He said he just gone to bed when he heard a loud noise and cries for help from his brother's room.
Jeremy opened the door and found the dresser and bed had disappeared into a hole. He jumped in and began to dig. But he heard nothing more from his brother before the deputy pulled him from the rubble.
"I couldn't do anything," Jeremy said Friday, in front of the house where his brother was still buried. "Everything in the room was gone.
"I just wanted to get my brother back," he said. "That's all I wanted."
Wheeler paced the sidewalk nearby and hugged relatives. "It's a dream, right?" she said.
She still wore her blue plaid pajamas.
The rest of the neighborhood area bustled Friday morning with rescuers and neighbors and TV trucks straining to catch a glimpse of the sinkhole, apparently entirely contained within the one-story, four-bedroom home, which records show was built in 1974.
Rescue crews lowered listening devices and cameras into the hole, but found no signs of life, a Fire Rescue spokeswoman said — only more signs of collapse.
Heavy equipment was standing by for a recovery operation and ground-penetrating radar was brought in early Friday to help gauge the extent of the hole, which Fire Rescue says had grown to be about 20 feet deep and 30 feet wide.
Although it has proven somewhat common for sinkholes to open in Central Florida and swallow cars and houses, it is not at all common for people to become trapped in them.
In March 2011, a woman taking pictures in her Plant City back yard plunged into a hole when it opened beneath her.
But she clung on to her cellphone and was able to call for help. Only her fingertips peeked from the ground when an officer arrived, but he was able to pull her to safety.
Florida man vanishes after being sucked into sinkhole under his bedroom
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Florida man vanishes after being sucked into sinkhole under his bedroom
