A 15-year-old boy was miraculously rescued from the rubble of the building collapse in Surfside, Florida, thanks to the heroism of a passerby and first responders, according to Local 10 television news.
Jonah Handler, a junior varsity baseball player at a Miami Gardens high school, was pulled out Thursday after the Champlain Towers south condo building went down.
The South Florida Sun Sentinel reported Friday that the number of missing residents rose to 159 on Friday, with four deaths confirmed in the collapse.
Handler was one of the lucky ones.
Nicholas Balboa, who is visiting South Florida from Phoenix, Arizona, and staying nearby the condo building, told Local 10 that he was walking his dog when the building collapsed.
"Storms are relatively common (in South Florida)," he said. "We don’t get some of these storms in the desert. Initially, I thought the sound that I heard at first was possibly a storm rolling in. I felt the ground shake. About 30-seconds to a minute later, it happened again. That just signaled to me something wasn’t right."
He said he brought his dog in and went outside again "and I could see the plume of dust and debris that was rolling out."
A short time later he heard the boy screaming for help. The voice sounded like a young boy.
"There was a bed frame and a mattress that were laying above him, so I could only assume that was his bed, judging by the size of the mattress," Balboa said. "You know, so he was probably just sleeping and then all of a sudden the building gave way.
The youth was sticking his hand up through the rubble making it easier for Balboa and first responders to spot him.
Balboa said: "He was saying, ‘Please don’t leave me, don’t leave me, don’t leave me.’ So I told him, ‘We’re right here. We won’t leave you.’ That’s when I tried to signal police officers and firefighters to get over there."
A police officer came over and was able to climb to where Handler was and get him. A video of the rescue was posted by the television station.
Local 10, quoting sources, says the boy was taken to a nearby hospital with possibly broken bones.
A family member confirmed to the TV station that the teen’s mother, Stacey Handler, is still missing.
Jeffrey Rodack ✉
Jeffrey Rodack, who has nearly a half century in news as a senior editor and city editor for national and local publications, has covered politics for Newsmax for nearly seven years.
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