Rescue in Surfside, Florida: Little fingers and screams led a dog handler to a boy trapped in the rubble of the collapsed condominium
Nobody could have survived, Balboa recalled.
As people gathered in front of the building, he and another man walked back along the beach.
“It was still scary how quiet it was,” he told CNN. “It was almost like something out of a horror movie.”
Someone screamed.
Balboa and the man followed the sound. Then Balboa saw something: fingers, little fingers crawling out from under the mountain of chunks of concrete and bent metal.
“I was finally close enough to hear him and he said, ‘Can you see my hand?'” Said Balboa. “He put his hand up … through the rubble. And I could see his hand and fingers wiggle.”
Balboa flashed the light on his phone to signal help and a police officer came by, he said. Eventually other rescuers arrived.
“He was obviously sleeping,” said Balbao. “I can only imagine how many people slept in their apartments or watched TV or whatever, just lived their lives. Without them knowing, the building was on the verge of demolition.”
Rescuers lead someone to safety, video shows
A scene of hope from the pre-dawn destruction was also videotaped, although it was not immediately clear whether it was the rescue of the same boy.
As firefighters in yellow or red hard hats scrambled over the vast garbage field, a rescuer reached under what looked like a collapsed wall with reinforced metal bars jutting skyward, footage from ReliableNewsMedia shows.
Led by the comrades’ flashlights, the helper grabbed a person in a dark shirt and pajama bottoms and led them out into the night.
The survivor slowly leaned forward, slung over a rescuer’s right shoulder, and laid his legs across that taller person’s chest, as shown in the video from ReliableNewsMedia. Then the survivor rolled onto a white stretcher and helped the rescue team secure the orange straps.
The team carried the person away when an alarm sounded a flat horn in three bursts.
