Florida officials said Saturday evening they hadn't found the body of the man swallowed by a sinkhole two days earlier, and planned to stop looking.
A somber-faced county administrator told reporters in Seffner, Fla., that the now-60-foot-deep sinkhole, which forced other families in the Tampa-area neighborhood to evacuate, was simply too deep and too dangerous for efforts to continue.
"At this point it's really not possible to recover the body," Hillsborough County Administrator Mike Merrill said after extending his condolences to the family of 37-year-old Jeff Bush.
Even before officials called off the rescue efforts, Bush's brother Jeremy had begun to have a painful realization: The last thing he would ever hear from his brother were screams — and the muffled cries for help that came from the chasm that claimed him.
"I really don't think they are going to be able to find him," Jeremy told Reuters on Saturday. He "will be there forever."
Jeremy told reporters he woke up Thursday night to something that sounded like a car crash. Then came a scream. By the time he got to his brother's room, the sinkhole had already swallowed Jeff's bed and dresser. Jeremy jumped into the giant opening.
"The hole was still caving in, but I didn't care," he said. "I just wanted my brother, man."
No comments:
Post a Comment