The remains of 64-year-old Elizabeth Pollard were found on Friday, four days after she fell into a sinkhole in Pennsylvania while searching for her cat. Investigators reported that her car was parked just about 20 feet from the sinkhole, which had opened above a site where coal was mined about 70 years ago.

Here in Florida, sinkholes are common due to the porous nature of the land. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the most damage from sinkholes occurs in Florida, Texas, Alabama, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Pennsylvania.

Has anyone ever fallen into a sinkhole in Florida?

Tragically, yes — and it happened right here in Tampa Bay.

Florida Sinkhole Deaths

On February 28, 2013, a sinkhole opened under 37-year-old Jeffrey Bush’s room at his home on 240 Faithway Drive in Seffner. It swallowed him and his bed while he was sleeping.

“Everything was gone. His bed and him, his dresser,” Jeffrey’s brother, Jeremy Bush, told Channel 10 News Tampa Bay in 2023.

Jeremy vividly remembers that day, saying, “I thought I heard my brother yell for me to come get him…so I started digging with my hands to try and get him. Cops pulled me out of the hole.”

“I live it every day. There’s not a day that doesn’t go by that I don’t think about my brother and what happened,” he added.

Jeffrey’s body was never recovered. “It’s my brother’s resting place, it’s where he died at. I have nowhere else to visit him besides that hole,” Jeremy said. The same sinkhole reopened in 2015 and again in 2023.

In 2002, a sinkhole also opened under a barn in Sanford, collapsing the structure and killing two horses, according to USA Today.

What Causes Sinkholes?

Sinkholes are most common in areas known as karst terrain, which involve types of rock, including limestone, below the land surface that can naturally be dissolved by groundwater circulating through them. The pumping of groundwater and various construction and development practices can contribute to sinkhole formation. They can also occur due to old underground mines.

Florida is highly susceptible to sinkholes, with thousands appearing every year, because it sits above limestone.

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