Miami condo collapse: Firefighters talked to woman trapped in rubble but couldn’t rescue her

‘We were continuously talking to her – “Honey, we got you. We’re going to get to you,”’ an unnamed rescue worker recalls

Firefighters say a woman trapped in the wreckage of Champlain Towers died while waiting for help, even after the rescuers managed to speak to her.

“Everybody that was there, that’s what we were trying to do, get this lady out and comfort her,” an anonymous rescue worker told WPLG. “She was asking for help and she was pleading to be taken out of there.”

Hours after the building in Surfside, Florida collapsed, rescue workers learned of a woman who was still alive in a lower level of the wreckage.

Venturing inside without even knowing yet if the rubble was stable, the crew managed to locate her voice – but it was coming from behind a wall of debris. The rescuers couldn’t reach her or even see her, but they could hear her.

“We were continuously talking to her,” the unnamed rescuer said. “‘Honey, we got you. We’re going to get to you.’”

The woman said she was pinned next to a bed, and her parents were trapped somewhere near her as well.

According to a supervisor’s email obtained by WPLG, the crew kept talking to her “about 10 to 11 hours after the collapse,” but eventually had to pull back because a fire broke out nearby.

Later, the rescuers learned the woman had died.

When they were told the news, the email said, people “saw the wind knocked out of our guys”.

Miami-Dade Lt Obed Frometa, who serves as a chaplain for the group, said the death hit the rescuers with “a feeling of not only defeat, but it’s a feeling of loss. We are human, after all”.

It’s not clear if the woman’s body has yet been recovered or identified.

At least 18 people are dead and 145 still missing in the rubble of the apartment building, which collapsed on 24 June.