On July 21, Jeffrey Bush will celebrate his 46th birthday. But ten years ago, he was swallowed by the dirt under the bed where he slept, and his family mourned the man whose body was never found.
A 20- to 30-foot sinkhole suddenly appeared beneath his home in Seffner, Florida, engulfing the 37-year-old man and his bedroom.
The fatal hole reappeared in the same spot in early July 2023 for the third time, and brother Jeremy Bush, who is always haunted by Jeffrey’s crying, said it was difficult to witness.
On February 28, 2013, Jeffrey Bush was dozing off in his bedroom at the home where his brother Jeremy’s fiancee Rachel Wicker lived with her family.
The seat was in the village of Seffner, population less than 9,000, located on the outskirts of Tampa. The previous month Jeffrey had moved in and joined his brother Jeremy, Rachel, Hannah, and two other residents.
As Jeremy, who was 36 at the time, was getting ready for bed, he heard a loud crash that sounded “like a car going through the house”, followed by his brother’s terrifying screams for help.
Fighting back tears as he described what happened, Jeremy said he rushed to Jeffrey’s room and without thinking followed his brother’s screams into the freshly dug hole in the dirt.
BREAKING -Faithway Dr sinkhole reopened after fatal incident 2013 @HCSOSheriff @HillsFireRescue @HillsboroughFL pic.twitter.com/WGLWWm3mm8
— Larry McKinnon ⭐️ (@LarryMcHCSO) August 19, 2015
“I ran in there and I heard somebody screaming, my brother screaming,” Jeremy recalled after the incident. And all I see is this huge void. I can only make out the top of his bed. I jumped into the hole and tried to get him out because I couldn’t see anything else.
Jeremey desperately looked through the debris in the room for his beloved sibling.
“I didn’t care that the floor was still giving way and the dirt was falling. I wanted to protect my brother. He was screaming and yelling at me and I heard it. There was nothing I could do.”
Jeffrey was buried because the dirt was rising too fast, but Jeremy was freed by a constable who had just arrived on the scene.
That night the ground cracked three times, increasing the depth and width of the hole. After 48 hours, the search for Jeffrey was abandoned because there were no signs of life and because the area was too dangerous for rescuers to enter due to its “severely unstable” condition.
A hole in the ground that appears unexpectedly is known as a sinkhole. The main causes are erosion, naturally occurring subsurface water collection, or human activity. Experts say Mother Nature created the Seffner Sinkhole.
Florida, the state with the most sinkholes, is a peninsula made of porous carbonate rocks such as limestone that trap and transport groundwater.
The hole below Jeffrey’s bedroom had several levels, with the deepest level being about 30 feet underground and the widest point roughly 20 feet in diameter.
After that sad evening, Jeremy argued that the rescue teams should have lasted longer.
He said: “I think they should have tried harder to get my brother out of there. That was my brother, I said. Nobody even mentions what my parents are going through. They’re not willing to go on camera. Right now my parents are going through hell.
After that sad evening, Jeremy argued that the rescue teams should have lasted longer.
The house where Jeffrey died, as well as two neighboring properties, were demolished for safety reasons. After filling the huge hole with a mixture of water and gravel, the property was surrounded by a double fence.
The site, which neighbors say “looks like a park” but they can’t use, has trees and a memorial that reads “Honoring Life and Loss of Life and Property.” 28 Feb 2013. Steven Bush 21 Jul 1975 – 28 Feb 2013. Allen, Jaudon, and Wicker Family Residences.
The same compound was used to plug the sinkhole when it reopened in 2015 and will be used again now that it has recently resurfaced.
“If there is a repeat, it will be held in a controlled environment. According to county code enforcement director Jon-Paul Lavandeira, he will remain in his current location.
Regarding potential threats to the neighborhood, Lavandeira noted, “None of the houses in the area appear to be in danger. We are not seeing anything out of the ordinary here.”
Most sinkholes are small and can be found in places like parking lots and highways.
However, some are bigger than the ones that kidnapped Jeffrey.
Five vehicles, two businesses, a three-bedroom house, and part of an Olympic-sized swimming pool were all swallowed up in a 400-foot-wide sinkhole near Orlando in 1981.
According to specialists, Jeffrey’s body was probably swept into the water below the surface and may have once slipped into the neighboring Alafia River. According to another scenario, Jeffrey’s body “sunk into a 60-foot water-filled gap between the sinkhole and the bedrock and is trapped in the sediment,” according to environmental scientist Philip van Beynen, who studied the sinkholes.
And now that the fatal hole has been uncovered again, Jeremy is haunted by unpleasant memories.
He claimed to have vivid memories of that particular day.
Everything disappeared. His dresser, his bed, and him… I tried to get him back with my hands. I think about my brother every day; not a day passes. I keep hearing my brother begging and screaming for help because of what happened in that house that night, said Jeremy, who was there to see crews dig the hole a third time. Since it’s the only place I have to visit, I try to stop by when I’m not at work. There is his final resting place. Seeing a reopened hole is difficult.
He keeps calling for help and I can hear it, Jeremy added.