Recently the nation and the world were shocked to learn of the tragedy in Surfside, Florida, when an apartment tower unexpectedly collapsed overnight, leaving millions of dollars in losses and more importantly dozens of people dead.
In the early morning hours of June 24, the south building of the Champlain Towers collapsed taking the lives of 98 people in its fall.
Among the survivors is Taylor Gonzalez. She lived on the 9th floor of the collapsed tower with her mother Angela, sister Deven and father Edgar. Fortunately, Taylor was not in the building at the time of the disaster.
“They told me that if they were on that side of the building, there wasn’t going to be any survivors. So that was a very difficult night,” said Taylor.
After hours of immense efforts by rescue groups, Angela and Deven were taken out of the rubble of the collapsed tower. Unfortunately, Edgar did not make it out and was counted among those killed in the tragedy.
Angela, Taylor’s mother reported that moments before the structure of the building began to shake she was in the living room watching tv with her husband Edgar and that when she felt movement she thought for a moment that it was an earthquake, so she ran to Deven’s room where she was asleep to try to save her. That’s when the building fell.
Deven suffered a broken femur and other injuries that caused her to lose a lot of blood so she perched on some pieces of debris to rest her sore leg as she screamed for her mother until both were finally found.
“He was my best friend, he was my – my person. So every day, you go to sleep and then you wake up and your whole life is completely different,” Angela said about the death of her husband.
