One dead, five injured after storm topples crane in Dallas
DALLAS — One person was killed and at least five 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.
Five other people were hospitalized at Parkland Memorial Hospital and Baylor University Medical Center. Two were transported in critical condition, two were in serious condition and one person who was treated for a minor injury and released, Evans said.
The crane, which was being used at a construction site next door, collapsed just before 2 p.m. into the building near U.S. Highway 75 and North Good-Latimer Expressway, Evans said.
Multiple emergency crews responded to help dig through rubble, evacuate residents and search for people and pets who may have been trapped inside the apartments and collapsed parking garage.
“We are currently working to help determine the scope of damage caused by the collapse, and consult with management on what they’ll need to do going forward,” Evans said in a written statement.
The cause of the collapse has not been confirmed, he said.
Apartment management continued to work Sunday evening to account for all of the building’s residents, but there were no reports of any missing people, Evans said.
Attempts to reach the company that owns the apartment complex were unsuccessful.
Yesenia Bosquez’s family had moved into their top-floor 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 which hospital he was taken to.
Abbey Kearney and her husband, Shawn, were in their third-floor apartment when the sky quickly went dark. She said they went out on their patio, which overlooks the pool, and saw umbrellas hurtling through the air.
The Kearneys watched from their apartment as the crane fell, crushing units directly across from their patio.
“It was just like a knife through butter,” Kearney said. “I’m still just shaking.”
She said she was evacuated from her apartment, which was unscathed. Kearney and her husband aren’t sure when they’ll be able to get back inside to retrieve their two cats or get their cars out of the parking garage.
In a photo Kearney took from the third floor of the parking garage, cars are scattered among the rubble. Some were flipped upside down, and others were nearly vertical.
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.
Corey Lark and her husband weren’t home when the crane collapsed, but their two dogs, George and Carlos, were.
“I wasn’t going to be OK until I had my dogs,” she said.
At 5 p.m., police went into her apartment to rescue the dogs. Lark is worried that between her apartment and her storage unit on the building’s fourth floor, she and her husband have lost all their belongings.
“My husband says we’ll just rebuild,” she said, wiping away tears.