SURFSIDE, Fla. – On Thursday, June 24, Pablo Rodriguez had planned to see his mother and grandmother for a typical weekday drop-in. They would bring his 6-year-old son treats and, on this special day, his first bicycle.
But instead, he woke up to news that the building where the women who raised him were spending the night had partially collapsed.
And like the other friends and family of the 97 confirmed dead and eight potentially missing in the partial collapse of Champlain Towers South in Surfside, Rodriguez was suddenly left to ponder horrific questions: Did the matriarchs of his family feel pain when the condo his mother bought in 2009 — the one that always smelled like the beach and cooking food — fell in a heap of concrete and steel? Did they survive the initial collapse? Were they holding each other?
After weeks of grief, some of the first answers were delivered by police officers, who arrived at his door on July 9 and told him the women were found together, pulled from the rubble on July 5 and 6.
“They said the medical examiner’s opinion was that they were together, and that they did not suffer,” Rodriguez, 40, said. “I need to believe that is true.”
Thrust into mourning without the benefit of goodbyes, the bereaved are beginning to find some semblance of relief as authorities identify their loved ones and, for the first time, detail the circumstances of their deaths, telling families that the severity of the collapse likely meant that the end came quickly.
In an interview, Miami-Dade Medical Examiner Dr. Emma Lew, who has been with the office since the early 1990s, said she hopes families can take solace in the fact that the investigation is finding that their loved ones “would not have been aware that they were in a situation that would cause death.”
“If they were asleep, they would not have been conscious long enough to suffer,” Lew, who is retiring in August, said in a Monday interview. “From what I’ve seen of the bodies, that is very much the case.”
Identification of bodies and reports can bring closure to families, especially as personal belongings and family heirlooms are being kept in Miami-Dade Police evidence storage for the time being. The families of the victims, most of whom have been identified, have only had limited access to the collapse site, and in some cases have been forced to hold funerals prior to the release of a body or the identification of the deceased.
‘Saying goodbye’
Rodriguez, who lost his 64-year-old mother, Elena Blasser, and grandmother, 88-year-old Elena Chavez, said he is still waiting for his mother’s body to be released so the family can have a funeral for both women.
He said the period of time before Blasser and Chavez were found and identified was the worst time of his entire life. He lived in a daze, “one long day that was a nightmare.” But now, knowing they were found has answered at least one of his many questions about what happened the day of the tragedy, he said.
“I was just waiting,” he said. “It confirmed what I already knew.”
Other families have taken similar comfort in the reports on their loved ones.
“These are losses that we will forever grieve,” said Sarina Patel, the niece of Vishal Patel, who died in the collapse with his pregnant wife, Bhavna and 1-year-old daughter Aishani. “But finding them has most definitely brought us some peace and we are so grateful their suffering is over now.”
Israeli Col. Golan Vach, who heads a specialized search and rescue unit of the Israel Defense Forces, visited the Ainsworth family Tuesday to pass on the same message, according to a Chabad of South Broward newsletter. At their shiva for Itty and Tzivi Ainsworth, a week-long Jewish memorial period, Vach assured the family that, based on their remains, the couple had died on impact and had not suffered.
Dr. Daniel Sheridan, a psychologist and the clinical director of Miami’s Children’s Bereavement Center, told the Miami Herald that receiving notice or information about one’s death can bring up “a lot of mixed feelings,” but that the end of uncertainty can allow for families to mourn.
The center offers free grief support groups weekly, and will soon be offering targeted groups for families and friends of Surfside collapse victims.
“There have been so many what-ifs, holding out for hope, uncertainty ... to finally get the news that the person has died can really usher in the next aspect of this, which is the mourning and the saying goodbye,” he said. “They have an answer that they can begin to wrap their head around.”
‘The gravity is different’
For a few families, closure has been elusive. Some victims have yet to be identified, and as of Thursday, eight people were still believed possibly missing in the rubble of the fallen tower. The process of identifying remains has grown harder as time goes on, Lew said, adding that fingerprints are harder to find and DNA samples more arduous to test.
“We are getting into the state where the tissues are disintegrating,” she said.
The gravity of the task has been motivation for the Miami-Dade Medical Examiner’s Office, which played an integral role in certifying hundreds of deaths attributed to COVID-19 during the first months of the pandemic, all while performing autopsies and investigating cases such as shootings, stabbings, car accidents, drownings and more. On the heels of all that, the Surfside collapse presented unique challenges.
“We’re doing all the things we normally do, but the scale is different, the gravity is different,” said Darren Caprara, the Medical Examiner’s director of operations. “Everybody is working extra hours. Everybody is working harder.”
From the morning of the Surfside condo collapse, Medical Examiner technicians were dispatched to the scene alongside search-and-rescue crews and police detectives, helping to pull remains from the massive pile of rubble and concrete.
In the early days, DNA swabs were taken and identifications were done under tents on scene, then in trailers. Later, as stormy weather complicated conditions in Surfside, bodies began being transported to the Medical Examiner’s Office across from Jackson Memorial Hospital.
The staff of seven forensic pathologists, plus four fellows, has been on hand to examine the remains. And just as importantly, 15 investigators have served as vital liaisons with relatives of the dead, walking them through the process and coordinating transfer of the bodies to funeral homes. They have also worked with religious leaders over concerns about burials. In Surfside, there was a large number of Jewish victims, and for some, burials must take place as soon as possible.
“We’re there to help them to find closure and peace,” Caprara said.
While offers of help came from across the United States, the Medical Examiner’s Office was able to staff the condo collapse with its own pathologists. Specialists were needed, such as a fingerprint analyst from the FBI, and experts from Florida Emergency Mortuary Operations Response System, which is run through the University of Florida’s Maples Center for Forensic Medicine.
The 28-member UF team, including medical investigators and specialists dealing in X-rays, genetics, forensic anthropology and logistics, has brought genetic testing equipment, which has been valuable in helping to rapidly identify remains.
“Now it’s extremely cheap and fast. With rapid DNA, you can compare two samples in a couple of hours,” said Jason Byrd, the commander of UF’s emergency mortuary operations team.
Despite their usual work with death, Surfside has still taken an emotional toll on Medical Examiner staffers. Counselors and three Miami-Dade Fire-Rescue emotional support dogs — Charlie, Freckles and Luna — visited the morgue offices last week
“It’s been tough on us too,” Caprara said. “We’ve been involved in this case since day one. It’s been tough on us mentally. This has been unprecedented for us too.”
Holding onto memories
Among the worst building failures in U.S. history, the fall of the tower left victims’ families in a lurch. The Saturday before the collapse, Rodriguez and his wife, son and mother had returned home from a family vacation to visit his brother in Washington, D.C., and see the sights of Philadelphia.
On Wednesday night before they went to sleep, Rodriguez and his mother talked on the phone to plan the next day. If it was rainy, they’d go to Rodriguez’s home in Kendall. If the weather was nice, they would go to the beach near the Champlain Towers, the beach where Rodriguez’s son first saw the ocean and where the family spent countless weekends bobbing in the water “like little buoys” and playing in the sand.
Before they hung up, she told him that she heard a loud creaking noise at around 3 a.m. Wednesday, and she never went back to sleep.
“That part plays in my head,” he said.
On Thursday, he got a call from his brother. All Rodriguez heard was “Champlain, Champlain.”
He flipped on the news, and felt hope that the collapsed part of the building wasn’t where his mother and grandmother stayed. But halfway through the trip to Surfside, the surveillance footage of the collapsed building was released and Rodriguez played it over and over on his phone.
“I lost it,” he said. “It was the moment watching them die that plays in my head.”
The women were both devoted to their family, and Chavez helped raise Rodriguez. She leaves behind four grandchildren and six great grandchildren. They were both teachers, Blasser in Miami-Dade Public Schools and Chavez in Puerto Rico.
Rodriguez considered Chavez to be a second mother, and mourns the fact that his son will never have the same experience with his mother, who adored the boy.
On the day the building collapsed, Blasser and Chavez were going to stop by to buy the child the bicycle and drop off some of his favorite snacks — chicken nuggets and Dunkin’ Donuts Munchkins.
Chavez, who owns a home in Miami-Dade’s Westchester neighborhood, was visiting Blasser in her 12th floor apartment.
“Seeing how close my son was with my mom ... it hit me hard,” he said. “He can’t know what he is going to be missing.”
The whole family took a beach vacation every year, alternating between favorite spots like the Cayman Islands, Turks and Caicos and Cancun, Mexico. They loved the beach in Surfside too, spending weekends in the sand and by the pool, chatting with the neighbors who the whole family came to know and love.
“Before this, the beach meant happiness, family, love,” he said. “My earliest memory was going to the beach ... I’m trying really hard to not let this taint that memory.”
Rodriguez said he used to feel impatient when his mother would stop to talk to neighbors for 20 or 30 minutes to complain about the maintenance of the building. They griped about the leaky garage and unkempt pool. Where were the thousands of dollars in fees going, they asked one another.
“I rethink all these times ... it’s haunting,” he said.
Rodriguez said while he takes some solace in knowing the fate of his beloved family, he feels bad for those who are still waiting for news, like Ike Hedaya, whose sister Estelle Hedaya is still unaccounted for in the collapse.
Hedaya said authorities believe they have recovered everyone from the rubble. He said seven families, including his own, are waiting for the Medical Examiner to identify the remaining victims killed in the collapse.
“The Medical Examiner has everyone and they’re working diligently to try to match the DNA...” he said. “Hopefully we get an answer soon.”
He said he was thankful for the work search teams have done to reunite families with their loved ones.
“We know it’s not anyone’s fault, everyone’s doing everything they can,” he said.
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(Herald staff writer Martin Vassolo contributed to this report.)
