The dramatic story of the boy who survived the Miami landslide: his mother is the first identified victim

Jonah with his mother, Stacie. (Photo: Facebook)

Manager Jonas, 15, was a small hand beating in the rubble. He was one of the first survivors of the collapse of the Champlain South and Miami Towers. And her story, at the same time that it is a postcard of hope, contains a great sadness: her mother, Stacie Croc, 54, became the first identified death.

If one realizes that efforts to locate survivors of the tragedy have been largely unsuccessful, the teenager’s cries for help portray a miracle.

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Nicolas balboa, 31, is a fundamental part of the story: he was walking with his dog on the beach when he heard the noise: he thought it was thunder, as he said on Friday in The Associated Press. It was a building that was collapsing.

The young man left the dog at home and ran back to the disaster area. Along the way, he passed people who showed him the huge hole where once there was a building and a huge cloud of dust. He arrived before rescuers and firefighters, and was stunned by the dreary silence: as he took pictures of the rubble, heard what sounded like a boy’s voice.

Balboa climbed between a pile of glass and steel rods in his sandals, desperate to get any closer to that desperate call. “Keep screaming so I can follow your voice!”He asked. Until he saw a hand waving in the rubble.

With the help of another man, Balboa attempted to free Jonah from the debris that was trapping him, but it was too heavy. “It looked like a wall or a load-bearing beam,” he said later. He felt he had to ask for help. “I’ll be right back,” he told Jonah. “Please don’t leave me! Please don’t leave me!”the teen pleaded with his remaining strength. cried Jonas.

“I was totally terrified. His voice in despair, unable to find his mother, ” said Balboa, who was visiting Miami: he had traveled from Arizona to visit his father.

the rescue video de Jonas has traveled the world: there he is seen as rescuers helped him out from under a pile of twisted concrete and steel, and carried him away on a stretcher.

Stacie Fang, first identified victim of Miami landslide

Lisa Mozloom, a family friend, told the agency PA: “Jonas will be fine, it’s a miracle. He should have been hospitalized, but he is stable ”. The woman confirmed the sad detail of this story: the miracle did not reach her mom, Stacie.

So far, there have been four confirmed deaths from the building collapse, but as the fate of 159 people, it is inevitable that the number will increase dramatically. Among the missing, nine are Argentinian. The only death identified to date is Fang. The names of the other three are not yet known.

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“There are no words to describe the tragic loss of our beloved Stacie,” loved ones said in a statement released by Mozloom. There, they said they were deeply grateful to those who contacted them, and that “the many sincere words of motivation and love have been a much needed source of strength in this devastating time.”

The family requested confidentiality “on behalf of Stacie’s son, Jonah”, saying he needed time to “grieve and try to help himself heal.”