Newly released video footage depicts the moment a giant piece of crane fell onto a bridge in the heart of Fort Lauderdale in April, killing a construction worker and crushing two cars.
The footage, released by Fort Lauderdale Police, depicts typical downtown rush hour turned into chaos. Lines of drivers stuck in traffic watched as the blue steel fell, smashing into a Tesla before bouncing onto a Pontiac.
It was a scene of simultaneous horror and relief: at the construction site, the fellow crewmembers of Jorge De La Torre, who was killed, gathered next to a storage crate. Some cried; others looked at the ground. On the bridge, a woman whose head was badly injured sobbed as officers guided her into an ambulance. Meanwhile, multiple people whose cars had been hit were shocked to have come so close to death, only to have survived almost unscathed.
The driver of the Pontiac emerged, almost entirely fine, right after the giant piece smashed through her windshield.
“Did anybody get hurt?” Carol Zinser asked officers in the immediate aftermath, wearing only one shoe. “Did the car in front of me get hurt?”
“No, nobody’s hurt,” an officer replied.
“Is that a miracle?” she said, incredulous.
Later, it would come to light that De La Torre had died while two others were hospitalized after the crane piece fell from the construction site for the 43-story Gables Riverwalk apartment building at 333 N. New River Drive.
Detectives walked through the construction site, new footage shows, speaking with De La Torre’s fellow crewmembers from Phoenix Rigging & Erecting, who had been with him right before he died. Most of them stared into space. Some smoked cigarettes. One man said he had watched De La Torre fall. Another, the foreman, said he was right in front of De La Torre when the cable holding the piece of crane snapped, sending both crashing to the ground.
“We just heard a loud noise and then the tower just fell,” Francisco Tovias, the foreman, told a police officer. Something had “snapped.”
He went through his phone with one hand, the fingers on his other hand bleeding, looking for phone numbers for De La Torre’s uncles and brother.
Though the incident unfolded three months ago, it remains an open wound for many.
De La Torre had a girlfriend and a young son. He was based in Atlanta but part of a team of traveling construction workers, many of whom knew his brother, Brandon, who once worked with them as well. He worked hard to provide for his family, Brandon had told the South Florida Sun Sentinel.
Gemmalyn Castillo, the woman hit in the head, is a mother of four and a teacher at Quiet Waters Elementary School in Deerfield Beach. Since late April, she has been suing the crane and construction companies for more than $50 million. Castillo was knocked unconscious in the Tesla once the piece fell, her attorney had said, and woke up with a bloody injury on her head. She has been diagnosed with “organic brain damage” and has permanent scars on her face as a result.
Another lawsuit against the companies was filed in the end of June. Arthur Razor was driving across the bridge when the piece of crane crashed into the car directly next to him, according to the complaint. Debris from the crane then fell onto his own car.
He ran to try to help the occupants of the car that had been crushed and his shoulder was injured in the process, the complaint states. He was also traumatized.
Razor’s attorney, Brad Denniston, could not provide an exact amount he is seeking on behalf of his client Thursday. He said that Razor has had to undergo surgery on his shoulder as a result of the accident.
So far, no other lawsuits have been filed in Broward against the companies. None of De La Torre’s relatives returned calls Thursday. Zinser and Mark Cerezin, whose car was also smashed, declined to speak to a reporter.
OSHA is also investigating the companies involved: Phoenix Rigging & Erecting LLC, Kast Construction, LLC, and Maxim Crane Works LP.
Kast Construction has received multiple OSHA violations over issues relating to falls and a lack of guardrails, records show. A resident who lived next to the Gables Riverwalk site had complained to the federal agency several times last year about concrete falling near his condo.
In the last email he sent, Gary Grayson wrote, “Do something before someone gets killed, and the Sun-Sentinel reports on it. Only 39 more floors to go. What could go wrong? The other side of this project is the 3rd Ave bridge.”
On Thursday, Grayson told the Sun Sentinel that construction had nearly reached the top of the building. Detritus has continued to fall over the months since the accident. A rusty nail has been sitting on the ledge of the 31st floor of the building next door for weeks.
“Stuff’s not gonna stop falling,” Grayson said.
One woman told police officers that a piece of paper from the construction site had blown onto her property in late March, days before the accident, according to a newly released incident report. It was a handwritten note with instructions on how to troubleshoot a crane.
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