earlier news conference.

The hole remained 20 to 30 feet wide this evening, officials said, but it had progressively deepened beyond the 20 feet seen earlier today.

"The soil cannot hold the slope that it is right now," said Larry Madrid, president of Madrid Engineering Group, a sinkhole expert called in by the county.

Engineers feared a further sudden collapse because the house sat on fluid, sandy soil, and they remained uncertain about where the unstable area ended.

"[Another collapse] could happen now, it could happen days from now," Madrid said. "It could happen slowly, it could happen quickly."

The partially collapsed house and two neighboring houses have been evacuated.

"As items fall in from the house, [they] get pulled down in," said Bill Bracken, an engineer working with Hillsborough County Search and Rescue.

"Givenneed rescuing himself.

"I jumped in the hole and was trying to dig him out, but I couldn't find him," Jeremy Bush tearfully told WFTS. "I thought I could hear him hollering for me to help him.

"I didn't see any part of him when I went in there," he said. "All I seen was his bed and I told my father-in-law to grab a shovel so I could start digging, and I just started digging and started digging, and the cops showed up and pulled me out of the hole and said the floor was still falling in."

A first responder "heroically" jumped in and rescued Jeremy Bush, Rogers said.

"I went to the bedroom and saw the sinkhole taking the entire bedroom," Hillsborough County Deputy Douglas Duvall said in a