BRANDON, Fla. -- The brother of a man who was swallowed up by a 100-foot-wide, 50-foot-deep sinkhole said he thinks his brother did not survive.
The victim's brother, Jeremy Bush, is grief-stricken and wants the search to continue.
"Just to get closure, I guess. Make sure he's not dead. See if he's alive. I know in my heart he's dead, but I just want to be here for him because I love him. He was my brother, man," Bush said.
The large sinkhole opened under a bedroom of the house near Tampa, trapping Jeff Bush, 36, in the rubble.
Jeremy Bush told rescue crews he heard a loud crash around 11 p.m. Thursday, and then heard his brother screaming for help.
"When he got there, there was no bedroom left," Fire rescue spokeswoman Jessica Damico said. "There was no furniture. All he saw was a piece of the mattress sticking up."
Bush called 911 and frantically tried to help his brother. An arriving deputy pulled Jeremy Bush from the still-collapsing house.
Janell Wheeler told the Tampa Bay Times she was inside the house with four other adults, a child and two dogs when the sinkhole opened.
"It sounded like a car hit my house," she said.
It was dark. She remembered screams and one of her nephews rushing to rescue his brother, trapped in the debris.
"I just want my nephew," she said through tears.
There's been no contact with Jeff Bush since then, and houses on both sides of the home on Faithview Drive have been evacuated.
"We put engineering equipment into the sinkhole and didn't see anything compatible with life," Damico said. "The entire house is on the sinkhole."
From the outside, there were no cracks or visible signs of damage to the home. The front door was open, but taped off.
Wheeler's house has been condemned. The rest of the family went to a hotel but she stayed behind with her dog, sleeping in her car.
