1 dead, 6 hurt after storm sends crane into Dallas apartments
One person was killed and at least six others were injured Sunday afternoon when a crane fell into an Old East Dallas apartment building as storms pummeled parts of North Texas.
Crews searching Elan City Lights apartments found a woman inside an apartment after the crane crashed into the east side of the building, Dallas Fire-Rescue spokesman Jason Evans said. She was later pronounced dead.
Six other people were hospitalized at Parkland Memorial Hospital and Baylor University Medical Center. Two were transported in critical condition, three were in serious condition and one was treated and released, Evans said.
Crews were called just before 2 p.m. local time to the apartments, Evans said.
It was not clear late Sunday afternoon whether other people were missing or trapped inside the apartments and collapsed parking garage. Plano police dogs were at the location to help first responders search the structures, he said.
Yesenia Bosquez’s family had moved into their topfloor apartment just two weeks before the crane came crashing through Sunday. She returned from a shopping trip to find her apartment, where she’d left her husband, Jay, to recover from a shoulder injury, crushed by the twisted metal.
It took about 30 minutes for authorities to tell her that her husband had been rescued alive and had been holding their dog while medics worked on his injuries.
“It felt like a year,” Bosquez said. An hour later, she still didn’t know to which hospital he had been taken.
Isaiah Allen was in his apartment when he heard what he thought was the loudest thunderclap he had ever heard but quickly realized the sound came from the collapsed crane.
“I saw that the crane had actually fell straight through the building and had destroyed a good eight to 10 apartments and so there’s like floors and stuff falling through,” he said.
Allen said he saw a bloodied woman trapped in her apartment on the second floor.
Steven Cooney said he had been standing on his balcony watching debris fly off a nearby building that was under construction when the crane fell right next to him.
Cooney went to the parking garage, but it had collapsed. As he was leaving the building, he said he saw injured people who were trapped on the balconies.
Residents who were evacuated from the building gathered holding their pets and nothing else. Others said their pets were still inside.
Joshua Gomez, 23, was taking the trash from his thirdfloor apartment to the chute in the garage when a curtain of rubble came down in front of him.
He ran back to his apartment to find his dog, Lucky, cowering under the bed. Once they were out of the apartment he scooped Lucky up and ran outside, yelling to neighbors along the way.
He didn’t know where they would stay Sunday night, or how they’d get there without his brand new truck, which was buried in the rubble.
“I just feel blessed, though,” Gomez said. “Thank goodness I got out.”