Disturbing home-surveillance footage shows the terrifying instant a Brooklyn apartment building suddenly collapsed, killing eight people and leaving 18 others injured.
The six-second video, obtained exclusively by Gothamist and CBS News, was recorded inside the third-floor apartment of resident Anderson Velez at 1321 Flatbush Avenue. Velez lived there with his wife and their two young sons, and the building gave way into an active construction site next door.
When the footage begins, Velez’s 9-year-old son is taking a gallon of milk from the refrigerator as his 2-year-old brother plays on the floor nearby.
Moments later, their mother opens the living-room door and screams in panic. The older child runs toward her, moving away from the wall just before it violently collapses.
“That movement, in my opinion, saved his life,” Velez told the local outlet in Spanish.
The younger boy was not as fortunate and was pulled beneath the debris when the wall caved in.
Velez was working in the Bronx when the disaster occurred. He said his wife called him in a panic while pleading with rescuers to find and remove their two sons from the rubble.
In a remarkable outcome, the 2-year-old suffered only scrapes to his forehead and legs before being rescued from the debris.
“His ears were full of dirt, his nose, his little mouth, his back — his entire body was covered in dirt,” Velez said of his son.
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Velez said his wife suffered significant injuries to her ribs, spine and collarbone, while their 9-year-old son remains in intensive care after undergoing surgery.
“I am still in shock,” the displaced father told Gothamist. “The truth is, I’m trying to be strong for my son, but I feel terrible.”
“Everything was going through my mind. I was thinking about my children, hoping they were OK and that nothing serious had happened to them,” he said. “God heard me because I prayed so much for their health and well-being.”
Adding to the family’s heartbreak, Velez said they had moved into the apartment only earlier this month after previously living in a homeless shelter.
Velez and his family are now staying at a Brooklyn hotel provided by the city for residents displaced by the collapse.
The disaster claimed eight lives, including those of two children, ages 9 and 10. Eighteen other people were injured.
By Thursday afternoon, the FDNY said its search-and-recovery operation had ended and confirmed that no additional victims were found at the site.
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