Brothers among the missing; both are doctors, fathers
A chance to visit his ailing elderly father in Boynton Beach drew Gary Cohen to South Florida last Wednesday from his home in Alabama. The 59-year-old stayed with his younger brother, Brad Cohen, 51, that evening at his condo on the 11th floor of the Champlain Towers South building in Surfside.
Now Gary and Brad are among those unaccounted for six days after part of the condo building came crashing down.
Their families are frustrated about the seemingly slow-moving progress of removing people from the rubble. “We’re desperate to find out what’s going on,” said Jared Cohen, 28, Gary’s son.
Originally from the Northeast, the Cohen brothers both relocated to the South and became doctors. They are each devoted fathers to two children. Gary lives in Birmingham, Alabama, and works as a psychiatrist at the Tuscaloosa Veterans Affairs Medical Center. Brad has his own orthopedic surgeon and sports medicine practice with offices in North Miami and Miami Beach.
The two are close, Jared said, and both are religious, attending synagogue regularly and keeping kosher. Brad’s wife Soraya asked for the Jewish community to offer their prayers for Brad using his Jewish name, Yaakov Reuvein Ha-Kohen ben Devorah.
Soraya was staying at a different apartment building in Miami Beach with their 12-year-old daughter on the night that the condo tower collapsed. She last spoke to her husband between 10 p.m. and 11 p.m. Wednesday before she went to sleep. Brad had been living in the condo building for about six months, she said.
“It’s hard. You’re just thinking about if you could have had a last conversation and what you could have said,” she said. “We’ve been married for 21 years. We’ve had our ups and down, but it’s family.”
On Monday, Rosana Esther Lerman, a friend of Brad’s who lives in a neighboring condo building, said the two normally crossed paths as Brad was getting in his car to go to work and Lerman went for her daily morning beach walk.
Gary’s wife and children came to South Florida over the weekend to be closer to the search and rescue effort. Jared said they are a
“big tennis family” and enjoy playing together.
“They’re pretty regular people,” Jared said of his dad and uncle.
John Merkle, director of the Tuscaloosa Veterans Affairs Medical Center, said that Gary has worked at the facility for many years providing care for veterans.
“He is part of the Tuscaloosa
VAMC family and our thoughts and prayers are with him and his family during this incredibly difficult time,” Merkle said in a statement.