At 1:23 a.m. on June 24, the Champlain Towers South, a 12-story condo building in Surfside, Florida, collapsed. Ninety-eight people died and only four were rescued from the rubble, but one died of injuries shortly after arriving at the hospital.
First responders and trained canines did not initially detect other human scents, sounds, or movements after rescuing four people. Over five hours later, rescue workers heard a voice, according to three sets of dispatch records obtained by the USA TODAY Network. A canine team reported hearing a woman "banging on some debris" at 6:42 a.m.
Valeria Barth Gomez, 14, was visiting Miami with her parents, Luis Fernando Barth Tobar, 51, and Catalina Ramirez Gomez, 45, both of whom were attorneys in their home country of Colombia. They were staying in Unit 204, a two-bedroom condo at the Champlain Towers South. It was located in the vertical line of condos that split in half during the collapse, leaving parts of each unit intact and other parts in ruins.
She and her parents were in the primary bedroom fell two floors into the underground garage and was buried under debris from higher floors.
First responders consulted an engineer, directed additional resources to the garage, requested tools and gathered information from the victim. She told them right away which unit she was staying in and that she was trapped beside a bed. Rescuers spent the next 10 hours navigating deep waters, chipping away at concrete, and working in the garage.
Soon after initial rescue attempts, a fire broke out and rescue workers were forced to evacuate. Valeria Barth Gomez died before they could return.
Officials denied that rescue workers heard any voices at first, but then a week later, Miami-Dade Fire Chief Alan Cominsky briefly spoke about the rescue attempt when asked about it in a news conference. Public records obtained by The Palm Beach Post and USA TODAY, along with interviews with a federal expert on building collapses and two first responders who took part in the rescue effort, explained the details of the operation for the first time.
Repeated equipment failures, a lack of access to proper tools, lack of a generator close enough or powerful enough to provide the consistent electricity required to run equipment, and more showed how the rescue attempts were poorly affected. The fire that halted rescue operations was caused by workers cutting with sparking tools and the lack of proper saw designed to stay cool while working in flammable conditions.
It was discovered that the victim's family was never notified about anything, including that their family member had survived the initial collapse, that she communicated with first responders for hours, what she told them in her final moments or how she died. Rescue workers told USA Today that they didn't even know the victim's name.
Lt. Gregory E. Roberts, with Florida Task Force 1, was responsible to oversee safety issues and give direction and guidance to the rescue team in the garage.
“We were having challenges with water, electricity, visibility, constantly checking for structure stability, rotating crews and working on all those things simultaneously,” Roberts said. “We were removing debris, boulders, rocks, furniture. But we could still hear her. They heard her screaming or banging inside.”
Roberts said first responders never gave up, and knew from the way the building collapsed that the likelihood of finding survivors would be slim.
“It’s unsettling and frustrating,” Roberts said. “We were not successful at our mission, but we did our best.”
“It’s just hard to know we didn’t get to her on time,” he said. “All of us would at least like to have saved one – to say we rescued one out of there.”
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