A mother with a broken pelvis managed to free herself and her teen daughter from the rubble of the Miami condo collapse, according to a local report.
Angela Gonzalez broke her pelvis after she and her 16-year-old daughter Devon fell from their ninth-floor condo down to the fifth floor, CBS Miami reported. Gonzalez somehow managed to free herself from the debris before pulling Devon out of the rubble as well. The pair were then treated at Jackson Memorial Hospital, according to the report.
Gonzalez’s husband, Edgar, is among the 159 people still unaccounted for, however.
“Hope for the best. Everybody just gives prayers,” family friend Lisa Melencial told CBS Miami. “Everybody else’s families or any colleagues or friends that were in the incidents, I wish you prayers, thoughts … And I hope everybody gets well.”
A 10-year-old boy was also rescued at the scene Thursday after a passerby saw his hand sticking through the rubble.
“I was able to hear a boy that was pulled from the rubble yelling,” Nicholas Balboa told CBS Miami. “As I got closer, I was able to see his hand sticking through the rubble waving. As he was yelling, I responded to him. I began to climb the debris to try and get to him.”
PULLED FROM RUBBLE: A young boy was pulled from the rubble where a beachfront condo tower collapsed in a Miami-area town. The collapse trapped residents in rubble and twisted metal and sent a cloud of debris throughout the neighborhood.
WHAT WE KNOW: https://t.co/4OlPzbxLTp pic.twitter.com/feu3YqiSIC
— WESH 2 News (@WESH) June 24, 2021
Balboa reportedly said the boy was trapped with his mother but that he was unable to see where she was. (RELATED: Harris Has To Remind Biden About Fatal Miami Building Collapse)
The 12-story tower collapsed in the early morning hours Thursday, trapping dozens of residents underneath a heap of rubble and triggering a multi-county rescue operation.
Skycam footage captures partial collapse of a multi-story condominium building in #Miami, FL around 2 a.m. It is unknown how many were in the building at the time of collapse. Still an active seen. pic.twitter.com/y92CqlQrhj
— Brennan Prill (@WxBrenn) June 24, 2021
As of Friday morning, at least four individuals are confirmed dead while at least 159 people remain unaccounted for.
While authorities say the number of deaths and persons unaccounted for remains “fluid,” Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett said he doesn’t know how much room for hope there is.
“Apparently when the building came down it pancaked, so there’s just not a lot of voids that they’re finding or seeing from the outside, which again, that’s a tragedy.”