Worker Seriously Hurt in FL Building Collapse
By Doug Phillips
Source Sun Sentinel
July 23 -- A man working with a demolition crew in Miami Beach was severely injured Monday when the 13-story structure being demolished suddenly collapsed.
It happened shortly after 10 a.m. at 5775 Collins Ave where the building formerly known as the “Marlborough House” was being torn down to make way for new condominiums.
“Some of the falling debris hit the worker and that’s what caused the injuries,” Miami Beach Fire Chief Virgil Fernandez said during an early afternoon news conference from the scene of the collapse.
The man, whose identity wasn’t released, was hospitalized in critical condition.
As the building was falling, debris was hurled toward Collins Avenue, witnesses told local television stations.
It appeared that a large chunk of concrete hit the injured man in his front torso, the witnesses said.
Monday was the first day the building could be taken down under a city-issued demolition permit that provides a six-month-long window for the process, officials said.
The permit does not allow for an implosion, a process that uses explosives for demolitions.
“They had tried to ask for a permit to implode and they had been denied, so it was standard demolition that was supposed to be taking place,” Ana Salgueiro, the head of the Miami Beach Building Department, told reporters.
Miami Beach does not issue implosion permits at all, Salgueiro said.
The building was built in 1963, according to the Miami Herald. The property, currently vacant, was purchased by a Brazilian developer, Jose Isaac Peres, who is planning to build a 19-story tower on the property, the Herald reported.
Preliminarily, it appeared that the worker was the only person hurt from the collapse.
Fernandez said the company doing the demolition confirmed that all its workers were accounted for.
Still, technical rescue crews from Miami Beach and Miami, with the help of search dogs, were probing the debris for any other possible victims.
By mid-afternoon, no other victims had been found.
The cause of the building’s collapse remains under investigation.
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