30-foot sinkhole opens up in Lafayette, Colorado

A massive sinkhole suddenly opened up on a street in Lafayette on Monday morning, collapsing into an old mine shaft and nearly swallowing an SUV.

The 30-foot by 15-foot hole on East Cleveland Street near Foote Avenue is between 15 and 20 feet deep and partially filled with water.

A man who lives in the area had an extremely close call when his car almost fell in early this morning.

"In the moment, my truck was almost on top of me," said Lafayette resident Aurelio Zambrano.

Zambrano's white Jeep was trapped on the edge of the massive sinkhole.

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Holding back tears, Zambrano told 7NEWS reporter Marc Stewart he kept thinking of his wife and three daughters during the ordeal.

"I was scared because I was thinking, I'm going inside the hole with my truck," said Zambrano.

He quickly called police as the gap seemed to be growing.

"The problem is the bottom -- it was still open and then I heard water in the bottom," Zambrano said.

Eventually, rescuers threw Zambrano a rope. While his legs were temporarily numb from fear, he climbed to safety.

When paramedics first treated Zambrano, they said his blood pressure was high, but once he had a chance to calm down his numbers improved.

"All I could see that was holding him up was the front bumper and the back bumper," said neighbor Donna Carbone. Both of the tires were in the hole, there was no pavement. He was as calm as calm could be. Of course, you're sitting there and you don't want to be jumping around, just in case."

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