Baltimore construction company says one of its workers survived bridge collapse

Hannah Getahun
Updated ·2 min read
13

  • A member of Brawner Builders survived the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse.

  • Six other crew members are presumed dead; their bodies have not been recovered.

  • The bridge collapse was triggered by a ship collision.

One construction worker survived the devastating collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore on Tuesday morning.

Six other workers are presumed dead, Jeffrey Pritzker, the executive vice president of Brawner Builders, the workers' employer, confirmed to Business Insider.

Pritzker didn't disclose the names of the workers, who fell into the freezing waters of the 50-foot-deep Patapsco River after a cargo ship crashed into the bridge in Baltimore's port.

Rescue crews have yet to recover the bodies of the presumed-dead workers. Pritzker told the Associated Press the amount of time that had passed and the water's depth led rescue teams to believe they were no longer alive.

Officials suspended their search-and-rescue efforts Tuesday evening, The Washington Post reported.

Baltimore's fire chief, James Wallace, told NBC News that two people had been rescued from the water.

The Singapore-flagged Dali cargo ship crashed into the bridge shortly before 1:30 a.m. after losing power. A Brawner Builders employee who wasn't working that night, Jesus Campos, told the Post that at the time of the incident, his coworkers at the bridge were on their meal break.

Gov. Wes Moore of Maryland told reporters at a news conference Tuesday morning that the bridge collapse could have been worse had it not been for a mayday call that crew members on the Dali dispatched, warning officials they were about to hit the bridge.

As a result, officials were able to stop traffic on both sides of the bridge to prevent more cars from driving over. Moore said the actions of the crew most likely saved many lives.

Engineers previously told BI that the cargo-ship crash wasn't because of any oversights in the bridge's construction; rather, the sheer force of the massive cargo ship made such a collapse inevitable.

Read the original article on Business Insider